They say that disasters come in threes, and so it was for me in the month of May.
It started with a call from my son Jesse who was at college.
"Mom, I lent K my car to get his passport pictures taken. I asked him to bring my backpack up to the room before he left, but he didn't. Then he left the car unlocked in the garage. My backpack was stolen from the car."
It was the day before final exams. His computer was in the backpack, along with his books and notes. I gave him the best advice I could about contacting his teachers and classmates, and I told him to call the police.
My Mother's Intuition was nagging at me--it was the mention of passport photos. Jesse also needed his passport to go on his study abroad for the summer, and he had it at school with him. In my 3:00 a.m. sleepless wanderings, I texted, "Where's your passport?"
The answer: In his backpack. It was gone.
Jesse needed his passport replaced fast. There was no chance he could deal with it until after his exams and by then it would be too late.
This was a job for Super Mom.
I don't like to brag, but I am something of an organizational savant. But Jesse was in Miami and I was in Chicago, he was in the middle of finals and unavailable, and the clock was ticking. This was one of the most difficult and stressful things I had ever attempted.
I just deleted four long paragraphs of text telling you what this entailed. It was very therapeutic for me to write it, but it was a terrible read. But if you ever need to replace a stolen passport you should call me. Just make sure you have a credit card with a very high limit.
One of the many documents I had to provide to Rushmypassport.com to procure an expedited passport was a copy of Jesse's European travel itinerary. I had already submitted the form that listed his actual departure date, but in order to get the passport delivered before we left for my nephew's wedding in California, it became clear that I would have to list a different date on a fake itinerary. Although I was nervous about doing this, Rushmypassport.com assured me that they do it all the time, and referred me to their web site to see what to do. Heck, I was only misrepresenting his travel plans, I wasn't committing a federal offense.
Was I?
I am a very law abiding citizen, and I lost two more night's sleep over this. I balanced this against the fact that I would not otherwise receive the passport before our vacation, therefore guaranteeing the loss of eight nights of vacation sleep which is roughly the equivalent of 16 nights of week night sleep for a middle aged woman. I decided to fib.
Forty-eight hours later, my agent at Rushmypassport.com called with bad news.
"Jesse's case is under review by the State Department," he said. "It is out of our hands. The government does not move quickly."
Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, the agent asked, "Is there any chance Jesse has any felonies?"
I momentarily considered this possibility, but was quite certain that it had been discovered that my pants were on fire and I had ruined my son's chance for a summer in Europe. I imagined him living in his childhood bedroom all summer, without a job, sleeping til 2 in the afternoon and furious at me. I knew there was no punishment that the U.S. Department of State could inflict on me that could be worse than that.
We were instructed to call the State Department the next morning to see if we could find out any information (so much for THAT night's sleep) so Jesse and I scheduled a conference call for Friday morning.
I was a mess. Seriously, I was hyperventilating. Our fate was in the hands of the government employee who answered the phone--I was not optimistic. But we discovered a simple clerical error, and our State Department guy was able to fix it and process Jesse's passport. The passport was delivered to us the next day (only $40 more for Saturday delivery but who's counting) and I left on Sunday for vacation. With my horrific skin tanning fiasco. And the security tag on my mother-in-law's suit. Three disasters, all in May.
Helooo June!
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