brak666

So at 11:30 this morning I started off my adventure to get my passport. First I went to AAA because I had heard they would do the whole thing (sans signing) for me. Well, that wasn't entirely true, they said. They'd help me fill out the form, but I had to take it to the court house to file it. Well, ok. Since I had the thing filled out already, I thanked them anyway and asked how to get to the court house. What they gave me were not so much directions, but a vague description of its location. Well, I finally found it after about a half hour. Now, Easton, PA is a very old town. One of those towns that's so old, that they just paved their cow paths and called them roads. At some point they made a half hearted attempt at implementing a grid system, but if you stray too far from the center of the grid, you're pretty much screwed. There's two-way streets that turn into one-way streets and vice versa. There's one way-streets that turn into one-way streets in the other direction. The court house itself is approachable pretty much from only one direction and if you're coming from the highway you spend at least part of the time travelling in all three of the other directions first. Also, it has several doors that look like public entrances, but only one that actually is.

I go through security where I have to fill out a form to surrender my key chain with the tiny blade in it that I use to get the dirt out of my finger nails and the plastic off of DVDs. Then I get to the office and am told I need to have pictures. 'You don't do that here?' says I. 'No.' says she, 'We really should, I don't know why we don't.' 'Where do I get them then?' says I. 'AAA.' says she. 'That's funny.' says I 'They didn't mention that when they told me to come here.' 'They didn't?' says she. 'That's odd. They know we don't take pictures here.' 'Where else can I go?' says I. 'There's a CVS up the road.' says she.

So, then it's off to CVS where the guy tells me they could take my picture, but they hadn't been turning out well, and the clerk's office would likely not accept them. So he tells me to go to another CVS. So I go there. And they tell me their camera is broken. But they put a call into the CVS that's a half-mile from my house and their camera is working. So I go and get my pictures. At this point it's 1:15. So I head back to the court house, pictures in hand, leave the keychain with the tiny blade on it in the car, go through security again, and go back to the clerk's office. I have a minor stroke when she has to check with her supervisor to make sure they can accept forms printed off the internet (as I start formulating a rant about why do they have forms available on the internet if you can't use them?), but it turns out to be a false alarm and everything is ok. I pay my $97 and in six weeks I should have a passport.