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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (67232)	2/26/2005 8:32:19 AM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

Dear Postman, Where is my passport? Remember when I lost my passport in Scotland and got an emergency one to get home? I was so impressed by the Embassy who got it all done in three hours and even more by the Scottish branch that actually mailed me my entire purse and contents a week later. Since then, getting a new passport has been an absolute disaster. This is not funny. This is an angry rant. I dutifully mailed in the paperwork before Christmas. And waited. And waited. And forgot about it. Finally this week I realized that I need the passport by the end of March when I leave the country again and I have never heard from them. I called the number on the instruction sheet given to me at the London Embassy. It was disconnected. I went online looking for a number and couldn't find one but I did find an email address to request an update on the status of my application so I sent that in-- they said it would be answered within two workdays. Three days later, having received nothing, I called a local passport office who informed me that London must not have received the new forms with the new phone numbers and she gave me the new Passport Information Service number. I called three times, working through the phone tree each time to the point that it said please hold and then hung up on me. Finally, I refused to use the phone tree and just sat there waiting until a real person picked up. She took my name, DOB, and SS# and came back in a few minutes to say that there was no record of me at all. They hadn't received my application and why did I send it regular mail. Shame on me. I should have registered it, or sent it FedEx. Official documents should never be sent by regular mail! And now I would have to start all over, and if I wanted the passport in time, I had better pay for the expedited service. The 85 I paid in London, too bad. Gone. But you deserve it, you ignorant slut for using the regular postal service. Chastened and embarrassed at my stupidity, I went to the local office and paid 155 for expedited service and got new pics which aren't as good as the ones I got in London, damn it, because I have had a birthday and am now much older. Last night I got an email response to my inquiry of three days ago. Your passport was mailed on Jan 4, 2005 by regular mail. Excuse me? I had just been chastized by them for using "regular mail" for an important document and they mailed it to me "regular mail"? And how did they mail it to me when I don't exist? Did this woman even look for my file? And what will they do now when they get the new application? How many passports will they give me before someone says, gee, this person has been issued a lot of passports this week. And why didn't the post office return it to them if it didn't get to me? Where did it go? Of course, now I am worried some terrorist is sleeping peacefully as Rambi-- a blonde, short, old crone, what a great disguise!-- while I was lying awake all night fuming at the system. I feel a certain lack of confidence about homeland security when I learn my passport was mailed two months ago and never arrived, but I don't exist in their system. Also, someone owes me 155.00. I can't imagine the frustration of people who are in truly dire emergencies and run smack into a system that denies you exist, claims they never got your application but says they sent you a passport anyway. I now imagine that woman I talked to looking like the female version of that NO! guy on tv. NO we don't have your application NO we never got it NO you can't go anywhere.NONONO We are flying today, and I wonder if I will be on the same plane with me.