Chaos Attraction

Useless Documentation

2018-07-23, 10:17 p.m.

(Still doing catchup entries from the past....)

I paid $160 for a government document I will most likely never use. Whee!
I got a passport in 2018 because I was going to Mexico for ONE DAY on a cruise, and they never even bothered to check it when I went. Literally the only thing I have used that for was to get on a plane when my regular ID expired.

Now it’s old enough to have to get renewed, and I have been debating whether or not to fucking bother. I am about 99% sure that I will never leave the country again (hell, I can’t afford to leave the state at this point unless someone else is paying) and about the only reason to get it is to be able to get on a plane at all, which I do do maybe once every few years or so and now they are forcing everyone to get RealID at some point. My regular license isn’t up for renewal (it’s only a year old) for quite some time so I’m not in the mood to worry about that one too.

Oh yeah, and then there’s the current joys of the current government. I’m not in any targeted populations (or at least I’m not of color and was born here lily white) yet so theoretically the government shouldn’t be giving me shit about it yet, BUT...we’re gonna be stuck with this turd for at least most of the next decade* and who knows if even the likes of me will be able to get one in the future.

* between gerrymandering and the Russians, ain’t no way he’s not getting reelected. Hell, probably “winning the popular vote” this time if the Russians really do their job.

So. Here we go. I filled out both the “easy” renewal form, which theoretically I should have been eligible for, AND the “hard” form, Just In Case. I went to a “business center” that processes this shit for you. I literally paid $15 to get my picture taken because I read the requirements for picture submission and was all, “They have designed this specifically to make you pay money because they are going to nitpick the shit out of this and reject whatever picture YOU take.” I was told “oh, we can’t use th easy renewal form, you’d have to do it yourself” and I was all NO, then I’ll give you the hard one then, I am going to jump through every single hoop perfectly because if I fuck up anything at all I will be In Trouble these days. I jumped through all of them. The chick helping me was nice and it only took about ten minutes...and now we’ll see if I ever receive the thing within the next three months. You’re supposed to pay even more to make sure you receive it “in time,” but since I am going nowhere, who cares.

(Later note: it turns out that I got the passport ridiculously fast even without rush shipping, go figure. Meanwhile my coworkers who have recently moved here from other states are spending hours in line to go to the DMV, and apparently the RealID requirement in 2020 is clogging the lines, so muahahahah.)


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