Dear Passport Agency

Dear Passport Agency,

I trusted you. I was so trusting I told Aaron we didn’t need to expedite Harmon’s passport application for our trip in 6 1/2 weeks from submission. But I listened to Aaron, and paid the extra fee, but still in my heart knew it wasn’t needed. I even went to the Medina post office like my parents suggested, because they are ultra-fast. I knew that passport would be in my hands within a week!

But you lied to me Passport Agency, you lied. 3 days short of the promised two week delivery my mother informed me you sent me something to my post office box. A passport? No, a letter. I don’t believe I paid lots extra for a letter. A letter that says you want my street address instead of my post office box? Probably you should have put that on the form, and told the person working at the counter who checked my application. So I sent you back my “real” address.

And I trusted you again. I told Aaron that surely it would come on Monday when promised, because they probably just needed to enter in the address into their system. You had already cashed my check, so surely you had a product ready to send to me. You just needed that last bit of info, right?

Wrong, you lied to me again. So I waited. I checked the post office box. I checked the house mailbox. Nothing. I asked my mom if by chance she had picked it up. Nothing. Two more weeks of waiting, and nothing.

Now it is TWO weeks from travel Passport Agency. I have waited almost 4 1/2 weeks for something I paid to have in 2 weeks. I remembered you could check the status online. And so I did. Status: here is your tracking number, it should arrive on the 16th. What! The 16th is hardly over a week from our date of travel!!! 5 weeks from when I applied! It cannot get worse!

But wait, then there was a button to the USPS tracking system. What was the status, maybe it would come earlier? Status: we have received a note from the passport agency saying they will be giving us your item to mail, but they haven’t given it to us yet. WHATTTTTTTTTTT!!!! (Can you feel the fury?!)

I find the passport agency hotline and sit through 20 minutes of your babble passport department. Finally you let me talk to a kind sounding human, making it almost impossible for me to be angry at her (sure it’s not her fault, but my rage is like infinity). I tell her my situation and she calmly replies: Well, our system is down right now, can you call back in a couple of hours???????????

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Passport Agency, really? All I wanted was a passport for my wee child so I can take him to Ecuador. I even took 3 photo retakes for you. And paid you EXTRA money so you would make it happen faster. And I told you when I was traveling, so you can’t even claim you didn’t know. And now you won’t tell me where my passport is, or what is wrong with it, because your system is down? And I have to call back and sit through 20 more minutes of recording to get to a person? Shouldn’t you call me back???

Anyway, just wanted to say the friendship is off. I though I knew you better than that, but you have changed, you have changed.

With fond memories of past passport experiences and hopes of not having to leave my child behind,

Kelsey