Friday, March 28, 2008

Om.

Oh my God, oh my God, Oh. My. God. Usually if I write a "poor me" post that seems the slightest bit as if I am fishing for reassurance I just turn off the comments. Because "Wah, Poor Me" is just annoying. Well boys and girls, this time I need it. I need assurance that things are going to work out. Because, Oh my God.

We are going to Mexico, right? We leave in 13 days. Harper and I both got our passports within 2 weeks. At the end of the week we received ours I started mentioning to Pedro that he should track his and check the status of Masons and his own. He did and was just given the genaric, "being processed". That was good enough for us, we still had 3 weeks. Fast forward to yesterday, we got two letters in the mail. Not a good sign. The passport photos for the two boys were unacceptable. Holy shit. I went ape.

Are you kidding me? You pay someone a fee assuming they are trained in how to take a photo that meets all the requiremnets of the picky passport office. You pay another fee to have them processed, which to me means they proofread your application and make sure all the " i's are dotted and the t's are crossed', right? Apparently not. This morning we went back to the location where we got them and gave them the letters. Pedro specifially wanted me to come along to make sure "things got done". We got there and the same guy who took our photos was working and he felt horrible. He wanted to pay for our Overnight fee to have the new pictures sent back in. It was coming out of his own pocket. Pedro declined and we were on our own.

Pedro called the passport office again to double and triple check what needed to be sent in. They said the two passport were at the last stages of processing when they caught the error, so hopefully they will just be picked up where they left off. Hopefully.

Have you guys ever heard of this happening? We're going to get to go, right? Holy shit, where is my paper bag. I am getting myself all worked up again...

10 comments:

Crunchy Domestic Goddess said...

oh shit! i'd be stressing too, but i bet it will all work out. is there any way they can give you some sort of guarantee?
wait? do u need a passport for mexico? i didn't have one when i went, but then, that was before 9/11. hmm.

Christy J said...

OMG!!! The good news is that you can usually pay extra and get it pronto!!!

AnnieM said...

Christy- actually expediting only guarantees within 3 weeks. We could drive to Chicago and get it that day. Chicago = 4-5 hour drive.

Tiffany said...

The passport thing is so messed up. I heard that you can still travel to Mexico without one - they extended that deadline another year. Maybe check into this and just get an ID made for the boys if what I am sying is true.

Belle said...

Call your local congressional office and ask for a caseworker to do an inquiry with the passport office. That will at least assure that someone keeps an eye on it.
Good for you for not making the photo guy pay the overnight fees. We all make mistakes.
Besides, isn't Mexico like a suburb of the USA anyway?

Rachel (Crazy-Is) said...

I didn't think you needed anything more than a birth certificate to go to Mexico.

If you need it though, I really hope they pick them up where they left off and get them to you asap!

LJR said...

hope you got your passport stuff figured out....hope all is well.

Unknown said...

Oh, wow! The same thing happened to my mom. She had her passport photos taken and the photos were apparently unacceptable. She got them taken again- not once...not twice...but THREE times! She was pretty livid. I can't remember how the problem was resolved, but I'd feel sorry for the poor sucker who took my mom's passport photos and screwed up!

Unknown said...

P.S. Rachel is right. At the moment, you still don't need a passport to go to Mexico. You need valid identification such as a driver's license and birth certificate. However, it's always safer to to have your passport handy.

alanna said...

I just took my 3 year old to get his passport picture taken and the place we took him had a comb (eww) to comb my sons hair behind his ears. Apparently it's a requirement to see the child's ears in the passport photo. But who know right? So thankfully the guy at the place knew, had the comb (eww) and we got the passport no problem.