Listening to that Little Voice

When we went to apply for our passports back in March, I had it in my mind when we walked in the door to just suck it up and pay the rush fee...that's what the little voice in my head was saying. But the very nice lady at the post office assured me that I would just be throwing my money away, that even with the delays, we still had plenty of time. Uh huh. And if they hadn't come two weeks before our trip, I could call then and pay the rush fee. I should have just paid the rush fee, we would have our passports by now and I would have saved myself a whole lot of worry....especially with the reports that the delays are getting longer. It is typical of our government to enact a new law or regulation that they can't actually support. Passports are now required for traveling to Mexico and Canada (our port of departure) and for flying back into the United States (although we're coming back from Anchorage....and how would we get out of the country anymore without the passport?). This led to a huge influx of passport applications, which someone should have seen coming, that the government can't process in a timely manner. I am not a math wizard....but someone, somewhere must have some idea of the number of individuals who would be affected by this and plan accordingly. I understand the idea behind the requirement and coughed up the money necessary for securing the documents without complaint. But I don't think anyone is going to pay us back for the $$ shelled out for this trip.

But someone came to their senses and decided that maybe something should be done to, at least in the short term, alleviate the situation. So now all you need is a government issued photo ID and proof that you've applied for a passport which is handily available through the website I've been neurotically checking to see if our passports have been processed. You'll still need about 4 weeks for that information to get into the system or you're out of luck, but fortunately, we're ahead on that score. I printed the information today just in case their website had some sort of terminal failure....just like the little voice in my head told me to.