Tuesday 9 June 2009

Passport Laundering


I wonder how many times it has happened. It's so easy to do. Even after a hundred years of practise I still leave a tissue in a pocket occasionally when I drop something into the washing machine. Not often, any more, now that there are just my pockets to check, but it can still happen.

And it makes a mess, right? Who would imagine that a passport would disintegrate in the same fashion as a tissue! No, not exactly the same. The cover isn't too bad. And all the pages are still in place. But what a mess! Maybe it wouldn't have been as bad if it had been a fast cycle but no, mother decided on the soak option - those jeans were pretty grubby!

I had a nightmare last night in which I dreamed that this had happened to my son when he was in some dodgy third world country. Imagine! No mother close at hand with a copy of his passport in the light blue folder along with original birth certificates, etc. Yeah, the same mother who did the damage in the first place.

You might think the light blue folder also contains copies of my passport and those of my other offspring. No, just this son's. This son who leaves a trail of left behind towels and undies behind him wherever he goes. This son who, when he returned after an absence of two years overseas, was very proud of himself because he still had in his possession two items of clothing that he had left with. He hadn't replaced old with new, just lost the rest.

What a time we had trying to dry it out knowing, deep down, right from the start, that it was futile. In front of the heater didn't work, we tried the microwave briefly and finally resorted to the oven on low heat.

So today Bernie is in Auckland arranging a replacement passport. And finding out how long that will take, by how many days he will have to extend his visit. At least he's in a city he knows well and can speak the language. He's not on his own. I'm trying hard to find the positives.

And I want you to believe that no part of me thought Yay, he will be in the country a bit longer now!


We didn't think to take a photo of the sodden passport but this is an old black top of mine that I threw into the washing machine. The rugby shirt and his undies that were also in there didn't fare too badly.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for coming to visit!

    I HATE it when I do that (leave things in the pockets). The worst was my granddaughter's orange crayon, which also went through the dryer....

    ReplyDelete

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