Last Updated on: 14th April 2014, 03:40 pm
Wow. I can’t believe I started looking into this whole passport process back in September. Well, I have good news and bad news on that front. The good news is I must have filled out the form correctly, because I have a shiny new passport. It arrived while I was home with the family. The bad news is at the very end of the process, I got ripped off by Canada Post, at least I feel that way.
So, I got my passport photos taken. If I’d have been smart, I would have just gotten the photo guy to help me sign and date the sucker, and cut off the little piece that has my credit card info. But I didn’t know how much I trusted a random dude to look at my credit card numbers and stuff. Plus, he looked kinda busy. So I thought I had to go to the post office anyway, I can just get them to put the date into a few places, and help me sign so I don’t go off the sides of the box, and cut off that piece of the form with my credit card info on it.
When I asked them if they could do those things, they told me they could, but it would cost me $20. $20 extra? Are you serious? For something I could have gotten a friend to do if they’d been handy? Feeling like I was pretty low on options, I paid the stupid extra $20, even though I wished I’d had another choice.
On the bright side, although this woman was the snippiest woman I’d met in a long time, she cut a piece of cardboard out so I wouldn’t go over the lines. Some people aren’t that smart.
But seriously, $20 for that? Most people, if they ask for the Post Office to look over their application and pay $20, they actually want them to look through it to make sure it’s all complete. I just wanted them to write the date in a few places and make sure I didn’t go over the sides of their little white box.
To top it all off, at the very end of being made to feel like I was the stupidest person on the planet, the snippy passport woman reached across, batted at my wrist that had my watch and said “Hey, what good is one of those to ya if ya can’t see?” I finally figured out she was referring to my watch. After I recovered from being conflicted as to whether she was trying to discover that I in fact could see, or whether she was just that big of an ignoramus, I told her I can pop open the lid and feel the bumps.
So, needless to say, I left feeling quite a bit less than impressed. Also needless to say, I won’t come back to the post office for help in signing and dating my passport application in five years when the time comes. What an irony that I was able to fill out the whole application, and then got screwed when I just needed a wee bit of help.
