Plans, Passports, and The Amusement of Desires
Saturday October 9, 2010: I’m sitting in a Starbucks near O’Hare Airport, near Chicago, near the hour when my flight to Bogota’ Colombia departs, very nearly in tears, but not quite there. Actually I’m supposed to be in Bogota’ right now, the flight I originally booked left without me yesterday at 12:22 p.m. I wasn’t on that one because of a lost passport. I’m not going to be on today’s flight because of the same lost, and as of yet unreplaced, passport.
I discovered the undiscoverable passport situation just a couple days ago, on Wednesday October 6th, two nights before my trip. The plan at that time was to scan and email a copy of my passport to myself as a precaution in case it was lost or stolen during my trip. Ha ha smart ME!
This foresight was part of a recent decision to organize my life (and ADD brain), with the idea of freeing myself up to focus on some major life goals. A few months earlier I’d created a file for the explicit purpose safe keeping ‘travel documents.” This is where I expected to find my passport, this is where I am certain I put it after my March 2010 trip to Thailand, and this is where I first headed to retrieve said passport in preparation for scanning.
I recently read on Facebook that the best way to make God laugh, is to tell her about your plans. At least someone was laughing about this, because in addition to it not being in anywhere in the travel documents file, it wasn’t anywhere in my apartment, car, office, or even the stable where I keep my horse.
I’ll admit there have been times over the years where I’ve been amazed I haven’t lost my passport, but something about this seemed just a bit to tragically ironic to be true. On Thursday, still with no passport and with a flight about 30 hours away, I wasn’t in a panic. I figured that passport would reveal itself to me sooner rather than later if I just relaxed, kept looking, and didn’t freak out about it. Right?
But in the event I was wrong about that, I did contact the National Passport Agency, a passport expediting service, the airline, and my travel insurance provider. With the information they provided, I developed plan ‘B,’ which would involve a lot of driving, a lot of waiting in line, a lot of money, and a lot of putting myself at the mercy of the bureaucrats at the Chicago Passport Agency.
Thursday night I didn’t leave my office until 12:00 am Friday morning, and finally had to accept that the passport was NOT GOING TO REVEAL ITSELF TO ME. Reluctantly I prepared myself to hang out in Chicago getting an expedited passport instead of at the O’Hare International Terminal on my way to South America.
A quick call to Delta Airlines to change my flight turned out to a huge wake-up call regarding just how much this was going to cost. Piled on top of expedited passport costs of about $350, Delta had to get it’s share of the cut as well. Despite having several open seats on the next day’s flight, they wanted to charge me both the fare difference $300 and a change fee of $250.
Since that moment, the mishaps and misadventures conspired in such a way that my attitude, and my plans, continued on a pretty fast downward spiral. I was exhausted and spent the three hour drive to Chicago brutally slapping my own face, arms, head and neck to stay awake at the wheel. Fueled by desperation, determination, and eventually Starbucks, I made it to Chicago. On the way I hit traffic, took a wrong turn, accidentally drove through a toll, and arrived in Chicago…. late.
Lily, my personal passport expediter, assured me there was still hope, took my money and my application, and set off running to do her thing. I headed off to the City Clerk to get part of my application notarized- and where I was to become an unwilling participant in what felt like a Saturday Night Live spoof on dealing with bureaucrats. Forty-five minutes later (the amount of time it took city employee “Yolanda” to sign my form), Lily’s assistant made off for the Passport Agency with the rest of my application.
Around 5:00 p.m., with only two hours of sleep during the last 48 hours, I got the news. Expedited passport application for Lucinda M. Vette, denied. I was exhausted, I was discouraged, and when I learned that the Columbus Day holiday meant the Passport Agency was closed until Tuesday, I was mad as hell.
As soon as I checked into the expensive hotel (another $150), conveniently located at O’Hare Airport for ease of boarding the Saturday morning flight I never took- it was time for a relaxing hot soak in the tub. Within moments of stepping into the tub and turning on my brand new Kindle 3G, I immediately fell asleep and learned the hard way that Kindle’s are not waterproof ($300 mistake).
I recognize that in the realm of disasters, the highs and lows and lack of sleep over the past few days were insignificant on their face. No one died, no life had been unalterably changed for the worse. As far as I could tell no real catastrophe in the grand scheme of anything caused any ripple effect to be felt around the world. With this in mind I waited impatiently for a zen like tranquility to descend upon me… and bring with it my bloody passport, several hundred dollars and a brand new Kindle…..
The replacement passport was supposed to arrive by FedEx ($20) the morning of October 14, 2010. Up until about 3:00 p.m. on the 14th, I still entertained the crazy idea that my next blog post would be written from a lovely room at The Art House Hotel in Medellin. As of this writing it’s 6:30 p.m. No passport in site. Lily has stopped answering my calls. And I’m just about back to square one, except that I am a week older, my bank account is several hundred dollars lighter, and I have completely abandoned the idea of going to Colombia for this particular trip. Believe it or not, things are looking up.
I am reminded that life is a journey of unexpected twists and adventures. The experiences we pick up along the way can either become the baggage that weighs us down- or the luggage we utilize to carry with us the gifts and lessons life throws our way. It won’t be in Colombia next week, but I will be on vacation. And one that’s shaping up to be a surprising first step in a whole new direction.
That passport will show up one of these days. In the meantime, I’m actually kind of grateful to see I can have a good hard laugh at myself over this- and put into practice the option to focus on the doors that open instead of struggling against the ones that close.
I’d love to hear YOUR stories of plans gone awry! Did you find a way to laugh or maybe turn things around when life seems to be pulling out all the wrong punches? I’d really appreciate some company down here, so let me know I’m not the ONLY ONE!
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