I Lost My Passport

And I found 20 years worth of crap

Can we talk about this picture?

This morning I woke up with a sense of dread because I hadn’t seen my passport in a while and I’m going to need it next month.

Not to worry, I thought. I'm sure it’s in my very special file.

I keep a very special file in my office with all of our important papers and passports. I went about my usual morning business and then finally wandered down to my office to retrieve the very special file. When I picked it up, I noticed it felt a bit light.

Hmm, I thought. It doesn’t seem as full as it normally is.

I started rifling through the papers and discovered that I was missing A LOT of items. I sent out a message to my family:

I am missing Adolpha’s passport, SS card, and birth certificate. I am missing Gomer’s passport. I am missing the Hubs’ passport.

The replies came in fast and furious. Adolpha: I have all of those things because I need them for school applications.

Gomer: I have my passport.

Hubs: I have my passport.

I was relieved everyone knew where their very special docs were, because my passport was missing.

Yeah, my passport was not there. I double-checked. But it wasn’t hiding behind my marriage license or the warranty for the fridge. It was gone.

Shit, shit, shit.

This was exactly what I’d feared.

I did some quick calculations and knew with absolute certainty there was no way to get a new passport between now and when I had to leave. My only solution was to turn my house upside down and find it.

The problem with that is we have lived in this house now for 21 years. In 21 years you can accumulate a lot of junk. You also develop several drawers, closets, and or corners where you shove all this junk because you think it’s important and you might need it later, so you put in these so-called safe spots.

I have several safe spots.

I checked them all and couldn’t find my passport.

Fuck.

I went back in my bedroom so I could dig through every purse, backpack, tote bag, and coat pocket. That’s when my bedside table caught my eye. My bedside table used to be a safe spot…until it ran out of room because of all of the very important items stored there.

Surely it’s not in my bedside table, I thought.

But once I checked every piece of luggage and still came up empty, I decided it had to be in the bedside table drawer. It was once a safe spot and maybe in a moment of foolishness I shoved my passport in there.

I opened the drawer and was immediately met with a mountain of garbage with a few important things dotted throughout. I spied the corner of a passport and my heart quickened. Could it be?? I thought as I dug through receipts and hair ties. I pulled out the passport and discovered it was Adolpha’s first passport. I took a minute to appreciate the picture of that sweet baby and then I spied another passport buried under some pens. It was Gomer’s first passport. Yes, yes, adorable baby, I thought. But also, shit. I put 18-year-old passports in my safe spot but not my current passport?

However, on the bright side, it did seem like this was a place I liked to keep passports…maybe mine was in there?

There was only one way to find out, I had to empty the entire contents of that drawer and dig through the mess. I dumped out everything and could quickly see my passport wasn’t there. But I realized it was like a time capsule, and instead of continuing to look for my passport, I needed to comb through the detritus of my bedside drawer and see what was so important to me.

And, I decided to take you guys with me down this journey of junk. Here’s what I found:

32 pens and pencils. If you’ve ever given me a pen for your business, I can pretty much guarantee it was in this drawer. I will not attempt to see how many of them still work because I can’t part with a good pen.

4 unknown keys on keychains. I have no idea what these keys go to, but I’m afraid to throw them out in case they’re important.

A 3 inch tall stack of business cards from my very first real estate job. I think I can safely throw these away.

4 boxcutters. Umm…what the fuck? I didn’t even know we owned 4 boxcutters, but I guess we do, and they’re all in my bedside drawer.

3 backscratchers. What can I say? My skin is very dry.

4 jars Blistex (see above re: dry skin).

5 bookmarks. I don’t recall the last time I read a real book. It’s all e-books for me.

2 eye masks. I don’t wear eye masks, but now I might.

1 brand new, still in the package charging cord for my KIndle. This is devastating, because last week the charging cord I’d been using for years called it quits and I BOUGHT a new cord. There’s 7 bucks I’ll never get back.

Dozens of ear plugs. Sleeping next to the Hubs is like sleeping next to a goddamn freight train. I’m keeping every single ear plug.

3 paracord bracelets my kids made me years ago. Here’s the thing, I have a lot of the stuff my kids made me, but do I really need 3 paracord bracelets? Paracord is useful though…maybe I’ll put them in our go bags.

At this point I started to get really irritated, because this was supposedly a safe spot. Other than the Kindle cord, the ear plugs, and maybe the paracord, I wasn’t seeing any value here. That’s when I landed on the mound of unused gift cards. I hit the Motherload y’all. I got:

Apple cards, Target cards, DQ, Pottery Barn, Panera, Crumbl, Gymboree, Lowes, Sam’s Club, AMC, and the grocery store. I will have to throw out the Gymboree gift card since that store no longer exists and my children wear bigger sizes than 3T. I have high hopes for some of these. Last week I found 3 gift cards for the grocery store (in a different drawer) and when Gomer tried to use them he was told they were empty. If Panera has anything on it, that’s going to be dinner with DQ or Crumbl for dessert!

I found the following baby items: a random sock, a pacifier, Gomer’s birth certificate (this was his original before I ordered a copy and created my very special file), and 1 single diaper size Newborn.

Countless note pads to go along with all the pens and pencils.

Receipts. So. Many. Receipts. Why did I save receipts for a can of soda? Or a tank of gas? Or a few groceries?

2 power banks (dead). I will charge them up and see if they work and if they do, I’ll probably shove them right back in that drawer to keep them safe.

Another 3 inch stack of real estate business cards, but from a different brokerage. (I’ve worked at 3.)

1 tassle that was once on my curtains and got ripped off. I guess I thought I was a seamstress or something and could repair it. Meanwhile, those curtains are long gone.

1 USB drive that contains who knows what.

5 scraps of paper with amazing ideas on them. Things like: “copy cats” and “another city catches fire" and “she’s a muppet.” At one time, these ideas were gold, so I’m reluctant to toss them. Maybe I’ll remember why I thought they were important enough to write down and save.

And finally, a really sad item: 1 doily from a Ukrainian friend. It was his mother’s and he gave it to me years and years ago. Doilies aren’t really my style, but the sentimental value of it made it worth saving. And now with everything going on in Ukraine, it’s absolutely worth saving. Especially since I haven’t heard from this friend or his mother in several years.

And there you have it, the very important contents of my very safe spot drawers. I made it all the way to the bottom and still didn’t find my passport.

HOWEVER, because I finally stopped worrying and let my brain relax by looking at all this crap, I remembered when the kids and I went to Florida in October, I told everyone to grab their passports in case we needed to prove some shit to some assholes. I recalled putting mine in a hidden pocket in my laptop bag. I’d already checked all my bags and had no luck, but I’d forgotten about the hidden pocket. I reached in there and guess what I found?

YUP. My passport.

Now, I just need to put it in my special file so it won’t get lost again. The file is kind of far away and I’m in a bit of a mess that I need to clean up, so for now, I’ll just go ahead and stick it in my now empty drawer for safe-keeping.