What do you do?
You are getting ready to head out to the airport to board an
international flight in a few hours…when you realize your passport is no where
to be found.
That happened to me about 2 months ago.
About four hours to my scheduled departure time, as I started to do one last check of everything I would need for my trip back, I realized I had everything else but my passport. Now I’m usually the calm in the face of
adversity type of person so my first natural thought was, “it has got to be
somewhere in here, just look around”. So, my first line of action was
to empty my purse and thoroughly search through it. Nothing. Next, I unpacked my luggage and
went through every single item just in case I had accidentally packed it in
there somewhere… still nothing. I then looked under the bed, inside and
underneath all the night stands, dressers, drawers, trash can (ew!) and every
other piece of furniture in the room like a crazy person, in the event that it had accidentally ended up there somehow. Same result, NOTHING.
Okay.....time to back track and try to think of the last time I saw it then I
realized- about 5 days prior, I had brought my passport along with me
because we were going to go to the airport and I was told to bring it with me to
allow me entry into the airport. We ended up not going to the airport that day
but then I remembered, I had briefly taken out all the contents of my tiny satchel to
get to my wallet while we were stopped over at a tiny restaurant for dinner….and that’s
when panic begun to set in. OH MY GOD, I HAD LOST MY PASSPORT!!!!!
So I freaked out, but only for about 5 minutes lol. Then I started
to think of the next steps...call the airline to let them know about my
situation (like they would really give two craps), report my passport as
missing and then begin the process of applying for a replacement passport or
some sort of emergency travel document the following day. I stopped dead in my
tracks when I realized; I had absolutely no proof of citizenship with me, yikes. That
was when I really started to panic. How was I going to prove to the consulate
that I was indeed a lawful citizen and needed assistance? I couldn’t think
straight after that realization, so I stopped everything I was doing, including
thinking- and at the time, the million thoughts running through my head each second were very irrational- to clear my head
for a few minutes.
After I cleared my head and calmed down, I had a strong inclination to go through my
wallet for some odd reason. I wasn’t sure what I was looking in my wallet for,
but I just knew I had to look in my wallet…and that was when I found my voter
ID card. YES! One proof of citizenship!!!!! Woo hoo! Coming off of the excitement of
finding my voter ID, I reached for my iPad for another unexplained reason and
what do you know, my passport comes flying out from behind the case…yeah. Needless
to say, I said a quick prayer of thanks and did my happy dance for 10 straight minutes
with the biggest, cheesiest and goofiest grin on my face, and then I was off to
the airport to catch my flight with ZERO problems after that.
I’ve never ‘lost’ any document of such importance and as
such, learned a very important lesson from that experience. I heeded to the
advice from the Department of State as soon as I got back home: Always have at
least 2 copies of your passport handy when traveling…one copy should be in your
possession and kept in a safe place, and the other copy should be kept by a trusted
person.
I have 10 copies of my passport now, because I never want to
be caught in a situation like that ever again!
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