So, I’m sitting in marsha’s living room, listening to church bells ringing outside the window – its such a peaceful morning. with the exception of the nagging in the back of my brain about my EXPIRED PASSPORT!!!

I was driving here yesterday, when half way to the boarder I started thinking about how hilariously old my passport photo was, then got the worst sinking feeling in my stomach… “I seem to remember seeing a 2011 on it somewhere.. and thinking how far away that was….” so I rummaged through my bag, flipped it open, and… yep! expires 06 Feb 2011. so I tried to stay calm.. think of logical ways to fix this.. but just kept getting more and more anxious, so I called my friend jill who has some travel experience, and she immediately got on the phone searching for ways around this. after a while I get a call back, and pretty much my only option is go to the boarder and pray that I make it through! once I was in the states, it was a domestic flight to california, and only required photo id.

so I opted to go to the old boarder crossing – I felt like maybe they’d be a bit less intimidating there.. I’m shaking waiting for my turn.. rehearsing what I’d have to say to marissa when I call and say I couldn’t make it because I was too dumb to check my passport before I left. I pull up to the window, and hand the man my passport. he goes through the regular routine “why are you coming to america? how long are you going to be int he country?” and then starts asking questions I’m less used to “how much money do you have? do you have a job interview in california? what does your friend do?” never says anything about my passport, but eventually he asks me to pull my car over and go inside. *terror!* (fortunately I am pretty good at remaining calm in these kind of situations).

inside, he passes my id off to another man. the first thing he says to me “so, your passport is expired” and for a brief second I consider pretending I didn’t know.. but then decide to NOT lie, and go with the speech I’ve been rehearsing the whole way about how my friend called the airline, and passport canada, and I just realized halfway there.. and I could drive to fredericton if I needed to get a new one that day etc etc. all the while he just stares at me with a blank expression, which makes me MORE nervous, which makes me ramble more. haha.

so after about 20 minutes in there with him, he goes out and searches my car while I wait inside. he comes back after a while and sits behind the desk, and I wait… … .. ….. … .. trying not to use guilty body language. try to look innocent and nice and make them feel bad and let me through. still rehearsing what I’m going to tell marissa. eventually he stands up, hands me back my passport and my JOURNAL which, turns out, he has been sitting there READING, and says “have a nice trip.”

I was so shocked I just stood there for a  minute.. staring.. and then was like “really?? oh! ok! thank you!” and try to calmly run out the door when really I want to simultaneously run out the door and puke in their hallway. haha. I try to drive as carefully as possible out of the lot, and make it all the way to the irving before stopping to tell jill that I made it through! wooohooo!!!

next step, making it on the plane!

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