The government is your friend.

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I got my passport this morning. I'm still in disbelief.

A few weeks ago I got an appointment after my last attempt didn't quite work out as planned. My appointment was for noon yesterday, I showed up a half hour early, and once again there was a line around the block.

Once I finally got in (the guards just yell out at the crowd asking about appointment times and wave you in), there were almost no signs posted on what to do or where to go next. I saw two very long lines (actually more like two long, amorphous clusters of people since they were most definitely not single file) leading to two "Information" desks. I had to stand in one of them, even though I already had my "information", appointments and documents ready to go.

I stood in that line for almost an hour. Maybe it was the Chuck Palahniuk book I was reading in line, but the place brought out the ever-blossoming misanthrope in me. Once I got to one of the two (only TWO!!!) booths, all they did there was give me a little slip with a number on it and told me to go to the tenth floor. I waited in line for an hour basically to take a number.

When I went up to the tenth floor, I noticed there were 28 booths (all numbered above them) but counted only seven people staffing them. They weren't even anywhere close to my number yet. However, they did have chairs! Yippeee!!!

While I waited, I wasn't sure at times if I was waiting to apply for my passport or if I was in the waiting room of a pediatrician's office. There were dozens of crying babies and feral children around the place, and the cacophany gave me the first non hangover induced headache I'd had in probably a decade.

I kept waiting. I kept reading. I kept getting more misanthropic.

I saw a morbidly obese woman trying to wrangle her five kids by screaming at them with threats of bodily harm, another mother trying to breastfeed an infant and keep her toddler from toddling off, and a child who must have been around seven and possibly autistic because he kept repeating the same phrase over and over again: "I know it's gonna rain". I couldn't help thinking to myself that if these people were here, they were going to travel abroad. Didn't they have any extra scratch to pay a sitter? Any of them? It really did seem I was one of the few people there without children with them.

They start calling a series of numbers very rapidly, then stop at 804. Mine was 805. But of course.

Another twenty minutes goes by, and they did call my number. I was there armed with a folder with documents. I handed over one of the two forms I filled and printed out at home (in case I showed up with the wrong one, since of course the government passport site wasn't entirely clear), my old passport, a printout from the airline proving I have to fly to Belgium next Tuesday and then my credit card to pay the fees. They didn't even ask to look at my birth certificate or driver's license.

I asked about adding the overnight mail fees, and the man staffing the booth (who was actually very efficient and friendly) told me to just come back the next morning and pick it up. For real? Yup. To be on the safe side, I asked if I'd have to wait in line again downstairs and he said no, to just go the "Will Call" desk (like concert tickets?), hand over my receipt and pick it up.

And that was that. After all that waiting, the entire process of handing over the forms and being told the passport would be ready in less than 24 hours took less than five minutes. When I picked it up, I was in and out of the building in less than 10 minutes.

I don't like my picture in the new one, but does anyone like their passport photo anyway?

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