A Journal of Urban Living

No, we’re not planning on going anywhere exotic any time soon. But it never hurts to be ready. So we went to the post office to get Simon’s passport. (Both of us, so one of us doesn’t kidnap him and flee to another country.)

Peter propped him up against the white wall of the bathroom.  I snapped a photo and after some choice words for the printer, this was the result:

Passport photo #1

Not the most flattering shot of our adorable child, but we thought it would do. But at the Glassell Park post office, the postal service worker didn’t like our photo. She said that the background wasn’t white enough and Peter’s thumbs shouldn’t be in the shot. And she hated babies. Well, she didn’t say that but it was clear.

I explained that Simon couldn’t sit by himself yet and tried to reason with her. But in the end, we paid $15 more to get it over with already. (We had already made 2 trips to the Highland Park post office but the lady who does passports was never in.) We had to extract a sleeping Simon from his car seat, and balance him on a stool without a back. Meanwhile, the line of people waiting for service got longer.

The postal service employee without a sense of humor took the photo. It didn’t come out well and the official uploading system rejected it. So she made us do it all over again. She said it was because his outfit was too light-colored and his face got washed out and did he have anything else to wear? We acknowledged that yes, we have a very white baby, but there’s not much we can do about it… She made me run to the car (past the growing line of people trying to get errands done during their lunch breaks) to dig in his diaper bag, but the spare onesie was also white. So I wrapped my sweater around him and propped him up again.

Then, a few weeks later, we got a letter from the State Department that said the photo wasn’t to their specifications and could we please send another?

I wanted to ask the U.S. Postal Service for my money back because their cranky employee who hates babies screwed up… Instead I went to the neighborhood CVS. The young lady there put Simon on a piece of white poster board and snapped two (2!) adorable photos for $10 plus tax. Both shots were so cute, we had trouble choosing between them. She complimented him for being such a handsome and accommodating subject. It was all done in 10 minutes, no panicked dashing to the car for too-white onesies. Here he is, ready to travel:

Passport photo #3

Finally, the passport arrived in the mail. He looks pinker and more square than in the original, but now he’s ready for the world!

final passport

They also returned our rejected photo, taken at the Glassell Park post office by a federal employee:

Passport photo #2

It’s so bad it’s bizarre. We’ve been debating the proper caption for this unfortunate photo. ..

• Simon the Slug
• Mr. Potatohead
• That boy ain’t right.
• I’m not wearing a straight jacket, just my momma’s sweater.
• Bobby Hill from “King of the Hill”
• Ponyo in ocean form from the Miyazake film of the same name (from Gabe)
• Baby’s first mug shot

Please add your suggestions in the comments. Best submission wins an 8×10 glossy of the beautiful boy. He’ll sign it in 10 years, after he learns to write. And after he gets himself a new passport…

This entry was posted on Monday, December 12th, 2011 at 8:06 pm and is filed under H. sapiens var. Simon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.