Crisis averted

One sleepless night, several stressed out tears and $157 later, I have my passport and I'm packing my bags for San Francisco. Thank you for the comments and the e-mails...I am SO happy that this was resolved in time for the trip. The woman at the passport office this morning was very reassuring, saying that as long as they could speak with my two references, everything would be fine and ready to pick up at 3:00pm. She even said "noooo, don't be silly," when I told her how dumb I felt. I resisted crawling over the counter to give her a bear hug, as I thought it might make me seem crazy, and they don't give passports to crazy.

I called my friends after leaving the passport office to inform them that they should be expecting a call soon to verify my identity. I even sent an email the night before to two of them, politely requesting that they do not mention that streaking incident...turns out they don't ask those kinds of questions. One of my friends really got grilled though - she called me afterward to tell me all the details and their million in-depth questions, and my response: "You bitch, you told them I weigh 10 lbs more than I really do??!!" In all seriousness though, I am very grateful to have friends that didn't mind me calling them in a panic at 8:00am due to my own lack of preparedness.

I am also grateful to the London Drugs photo counter lady who made me take a second passport photo due to the shiny grease spot on my forehead in the first one. Not only would the photo have been denied by the passport office, it was also one of the most unattractive pictures I've ever seen of myself. However, the second one looked exactly like the first but with a big powder spot in place of the grease spot...as long as it's not shiny, I guess they don't care? Speaking of which, why does it matter if you're shiny? "Nope....shiny face, clearly a robot in disguise trying to enter the USA and bring down the government from the inside with their super robot powers." Well, look out San Fran because here we come - my greasy robot forehead and I are on our way!