It's official - Angela and I are going to New Zealand. The tickets are purchased, the hotels booked, and the glow worms await our visit. Oh, and my high-school friend Scott is jonesin' for an American accent, too. (American accent. Isn't that like saying "the color white?")
This all started in May of this year with the purchase of passports. The Post Office at 20th & Lawrence in Denver opens at 7:30am and not a minute earlier. We arrived at 7:25 and were promptly and clearly told that passport services does not open till 7:30. So we stood for exactly five minutes. And so did the people behind the counter, everyone just standing there, occasionally looking at each other.
What made the wait easily tolerable was a tinny boombox hidden somewhere behind the counter. I confess, I often play music in the morning while I'm getting ready to take on the day. It helps get the blood flowing and the senses...well, sensing. James Brown, however, has never come through my speakers. But it was an obvious favorite at ye old post office. The waiting area was expansive and empty, and the Godfather of Soul echoed from the linoleum floor and the framed posters of giant stamps. All the more entertaining was the postman behind the counter, a paper-white and paper-weight man behind wire-rimmed glasses, who without warning belted out, "HIT ME!" whenever the music inspired him so.
At exactly 7:30 a new face appeared from the mysterious room beyond the counter, and we were summoned to a section of the counter reserved for passport processing.
"So you needs passports, huh?"
"HIT ME!"
"Yes, please."
He asked for our IDs and birth certificates, and the processing began. A little scribble here, a staple there, this guy clearly had a process, and his round, bald head remained lowered in concentration while he worked. He then led us into a small room with spare postal parts, a coffee maker (or by the smell of it, a coffee burner), and a camera on a tripod.
"GOOD GOD!" pierced the wall as the postman motioned to a stool and Angela sat.
"Smile."
Like at the DMV, the photo took only a moment because, unlike us, the photographer didn't care that it would last ten years and be seen by potentially thousands of people.
"Good," said the bald postman. At his direction, I replaced Angela on the stool and faced the camera.
"STAY ON THE SCENE! LIKE A SEX MACHINE!"
"Nice big smile," he said, but that was already taken care of.
Back at the counter, sign here and initial here and pay far more than it could possibly cost to process this stuff, and the documents were stapled together and stuffed into an envelop. He assured us that our passports would arrive in 10 to 12 weeks and that they probably wouldn't arrive on the same date. With that, we were free to go.
His accuracy was amazing. Within 10 to 12 weeks our passports arrived, mine first, then Angela's. The photos aren't half bad, actually, and the remainder of the little booklet is filled with watercolor images--the paint-by-number kind--of American scenery that would inspire any foreign customs official to consider immigrating: a steamship on the mighty Mississippi River; mighty bison grazing at Yellowstone; a mighty ship with plentiful, wind-filled sails rounding a lighthouse penninsula; cowboys rustling mighty longhorn cattle. What the U.S. Department of State didn't happen to portray are everyday American scenes: the mighty inner-city crackhouses, the mighty traffic-jammed interstates and smog clouds, the mighty businessman quivering from Starbucks overdose.
Our passports secure, the next step would be tickets....