Month: May 2007

No Passport this morning.

Nobody did anything they were supposed to do over the weekend. Apparently, the Houston office didn’t finish and put the passport in the mail on Saturday, like we had been assured; our Congresscritter’s office didn’t follow-up over the weekend, like we had been assured.

No, apparently, the passport was finished this morning, and is currently awaiting FedEx Pick-up for delivery tomorrow fucking morning by 10:30 a.m., 2 hours AFTER we’re supposed to check in at the airport.

So, we’ve told our Congresscritter to tell the Houston office to move the package from the mail room to the Will-Call office. We’re hoping that they can actually achieve this, since it’s literally the LEAST they can fucking do.

We’ve paid FedEx $350, for a courier to go to the Will-Call, pick up the passport, and deliver it to us via Same-Day service. We’re being told that it will be delivered to our door by 10:30 tonight.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Stress? You betcha.

The Minion leaves for Germany on Wednesday….we hope.

We applied for her passport in February. At the time, we were told it would take 6-8 weeks. Since then, the estimate has risen. Apparently, they were completely unprepared for the backlog of requests, given the new rules which require passports for travel to Canada and Mexico. The delays are so critical now, that Congressmen and Senators have tasked aides whose only job is to intervene with the passport office on behalf of constituents.

It’s fucking ridiculous. We’re 14 weeks since we applied, and they’re still telling us that it’s being “processed.”

We’ve gotten our Congressman (Dennis Moore) involved, and they *think* we might have it in time. Maybe.

Either way, the Minion is going, even if it ends up that I have to pay a charge to have her tickets moved to a flight on a later day.

But goddamn it, we did everything we were supposed to do.

My last vestiges of faith in my government are slowly trickling away. How the hell can they “keep us safe” or anything else they claim to do, when they can’t even process a fucking passport, with twice the allotted time?

It’s gotten to the point where I’m seriously considering expatriation. No kidding.

Tom is unable to make tomorrow’s game, and I really would prefer to have everybody.

So, just to be clear, the previously-scheduled Superhero game is a no-go.