1. Take child to be photographed. Obtain passport renewal form. Fill in form and append previous passport and two photographs. Give it to husband to take to friend who is deemed official enough to countersign form and photographs declaring that child exists and is not part of terrorist plot. Countersignatory makes mistake in her part of the form. Application rejected.
2. Get new form. Fill in new form, including countersignatory's part so this time all she has to do is sign it. Give it to husband to take to countersignatory. On return, notice that passport and photographs are now missing from envelope and part of her signature is outside the box. Form now invalid as it refers to enclosed passport.
3. Get new form, plus form to declare a lost passport. Fill in both forms. Append two more photographs. Give them to husband to take to countersignatory. On return, notice that form is signed but photographs aren't.
4. Send husband back with photographs to get them signed. Signature is in blue ink. Application rejected.
5. Head explodes.
Duration of exercise: 2 months.
Outcomes:
1. Brain matter everywhere
2. No significant progress in long term goal of reduction in pathological need to maintain excessive levels of control in all things.
3. Still no child passport.
All I can say is, Oy!
ReplyDeleteSomeday, bureaucracy is going to strangle itself in its own red tape.
Yeah. Makes me want to roll those forms up very thinly...
ReplyDeletePoor Rosie... Sounds to me like you've got an idiot for a countersignatory. Can't you find another one?
ReplyDeleteNah, she's not an idiot, just drawn into that spiral of doom which occurs when the first version of an official document has a problem.
DeleteJust undergone trauma of renewing own passport. Form no problem but photo v stressful. Look like I have escaped from asylum while high on speed!
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be an unwritten law that passport photographs must make you look vaguely psychotic.
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