My passport expires in November. With no international trips planned in the next 4-6 weeks, I took a deep breath and completed form DS-82. Then I went down to the Photo Shoppe and had my picture taken. “Does this look like you?” the clerk asked. Yes, sadly, it does. I start humming “Sixteen Tons” and shuffle my ten years’ older and deeper in debt self out of the store.
My first passport photo – starry-eyed, tan, and very young. A bit of a Liza Minella/Kirk Cameron hybrid. Who doesn’t miss the ’80’s?
On to the post office. Ninety cents later, my application with stapled photo, a check for $110 and my old passport are on their way to the Department of State. Next month, I’ll have a new book ready to be filled with stamps. But for now, please don’t offer me an all-expense-paid trip to Thailand since I’d have to decline. And I’ll have to keep my nose clean for a few weeks, since I can’t go on the lam.
Reminder: Check the expiration date on your passport and suck it up, if it’s due to renew within the next 6 months. Also, don’t forget to enter my Rafflecopter giveaway for one of 3 Jetsetter Digital Luggage Scales. The contest ends August 12!
Thank you! Thank you! Passport expiration is the last thing we will have on our minds as my niece plans her destination wedding in Italy next year. I just know this post has saved a few of us from the anguish of an invalid passport at the gate, and from any evidence we are destined for yet another Griswald vacation!
LOVE the Kirk Cameron ref. Classic. I can see it! My first college boyfriend looked like Kristie McNichols, with his dewy brown eyes and mullet-y shag. Something about that 80s hair cross-gender ref really hit home. Thank you, darling. Liza with a Z? Maybe the eyebrows…nothing more.