….That evening we completed the two new forms with ease and got up early to go back to the camera shop. The guy behind the counter was more than happy to retake the pictures and apologised for sending me off the day before with a photo that would have failed. A few screams later we had a shot that definitely met the requirements.
We drove over to my friend’s house to drop off the paperwork for her to counter-sign. She has been poorly and I felt guilty asking her to fill in both forms but she was the only person I could think of who I’d known for two years who fitted the criteria. I left everything with her and we agreed I’d call in the next day to collect it.
We drove back the following morning. She’d done the forms but when it came to signing the back of one of the photos she couldn’t get the pen to work. Mistake #6. It was that shiny paper and every pen we tried failed. We ended up having about five pens on the go, with me scribbling them on newspaper to get them going again while the she tried to get a couple of millimetres of ink on the back of the photo. I was on the verge of going out to buy a cd pen when she finally managed to complete the sentence, signature and date. With relief I left to go to the Post Office holding the precious forms and photos.
I went to the counter to do the check and send service, feeling a bit smug that we’d finally got there. The lady looked over T2’s form and gave it the stamp of approval – even with the dodgy scribbled writing on the back of his photo. But then she came to T1’s form. Apparently Hubby’s signature was just very very very slightly touching the inside line of the box. Mistake #7. I could have cried. She suggested sweetly that we just redo the form. I walked out trying to suppress the urge to kill him for having an elaborate signature.
I knew that my counter-signatory friend had mentioned she was going away for a long weekend and I wasn’t sure when she was leaving. I tried to call her but there was no answer. I left a message and then moved on to plan B. We called our bank in desperation. “Yes, we can do passport forms, that’s no problem,” promised the man. “Come in tomorrow, you don’t need to make an appointment.”
We went home and killed the time until our next attempt at getting the form completed. During the afternoon my phone rang and it was my friend – she hadn’t gone away yet. She promised to call over to do the form again later on. I was so excited that I filled out a new form straight away. After making a mistake on one I moved onto our final form and filled it all in perfectly. She arrived and I told her to copy everything from her original form over to the new one. She did. I thanked her and she started to leave. Mistake #8.
My heart sank. I realised that Hubby had signed the original form and on that my counter-signatory had signed to say she’d known him for two years. I had signed this latest form so it was supposed to say she’d known me for two years, not him. I was all out of forms.
It gets worse…
Read Passports for toddlers part three.
