In 2001, I applied for and received my first passport in anticipation for travel to Mexico. Unbeknownst to me at the time, if you are issued a “child’s passport,” the expiration date is five years earlier than a standard passport.

I figured this out in March.

My child’s passport had expired last December, leaving me passportless for my upcoming semester in Florence. I applied for another passport during Spring Break, leaving me a solid 6-8 weeks to wait for it to arrive.

Week 8 was last Monday. No luck.

The past week has been dedicated to finding where in the world my passport is, mainly by being in contact with the [cough] very helpful [cough] operators in passport control. So, aside from listening to the lovely hold music [Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Spring (Allegro)] for hours on end, we have spoken with about a dozen people, all of whom have 1) New Yorker accents and 2) very little actual knowledge about the status of my or anyone’s passport.

Finally, the FedEx tracking number we garnered showed up online yesterday. The passport was being shipped from New Orleans overnight. To make a long story short, we [mainly my father] managed to track down a FedEx truck and acquire my passport.

All of that for a little book with a terrible picture of me.

The moral: if you are planning on traveling to any different country anytime in the next, oh, five years, apply for your passport now. No, really.