This summer I was lucky enough to get an opportunity to travel to Italy. Unfortunately I didn’t know that I was going to Italy until just two weeks before the trip. The reason this is unfortunate is because of the passport office. My passport had expired earlier this year and when you only have two weeks before a trip you are forced to visit this godforsaken place. For those of you that have never been to the passport office I urge you to do whatever it takes to not end up there. Unless you believe that you will never be leaving this country because of your fear of flying or your deathly fear of running into someone who isn’t white, I implore you to renew your passport in a timely manner.
Every single time I have gone near the Tip O’Neill building since that day I can feel myself become angry and instantly exhausted. On the fateful day that I went to that hellish place I arrived at 9:00 a.m. and I scheduled this early appointment so that I could have the rest of my day to do things.
HAH!
I waited for two hours in one line so that I could receive a number just so that I could wait in the next line. This line, which I waited in for another two hours, was a line that led to another evil room where I waited for yet another two hours. I stood for four straight hours! No ride at any theme park makes you wait that long. I have never waited in line for four hours for anything exciting but I waited in this dry awful place in line for four hours so that the government could give me permission to leave the country. What I haven’t even mentioned yet is the unbelievable attitude from the people that worked in this mind-dulling place. Every ten minutes I received a brief interrogation from a security guard, because he thought I was in the wrong line, for whatever reason though I’m betting he was mentally challenged. So as I waited in the wicked room with a rainbow assortment of people I was brewing a chest full of hatred for anything that was government run. When my number was at last called and I was finally granted permission to go to the window, I was forced to wait for twenty minutes while the heavy set woman behind the glass waddled around in circles, seemingly doing nothing at all. Once the woman had hobbled her way to the window she stamped my paper and I was done. ALL OF THAT for a stamp. It blew my mind. It doesn’t make a bit of sense.
Let me paint a clear picture of how you feel when waiting in this office. Imagine you are in a gray room. In this gray room there is one uncomfortable chair. There are speakers on the walls and all they are playing is Enya. There’s a bowl of pretzels in the corner of the room but they are surprisingly dry and happen to be stale. Combine this feeling of boredom and everything that is plain with every bad experience you’ve had with customer service and you will begin to understand what the second floor of the Tip O’Neill building is like.
With my experience under my belt I came to the conclusion that a government worker visited the DMV, or known as the RMV to you weirdo Massachusetts residents, and saw the hatred people felt while they were there. He looked around at the terrible treatment of customers and the long lines. This man observed the misery that is the DMV and he thought to himself,
“This place is just plain awful…”
And then he grinned and he thought.
“But it could be so much worse.”
This was the birth of the passport office
So, readers, what I need you to take away from this is there are certain things we must all do as citizens. We must all remember to pay our bills, pay our taxes, and always have an up to date passport.
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