Ryshia Kennie ...The adventure begins today!: Flashback Friday

Friday, February 12, 2021

Flashback Friday - Blowing the Dust Off My Passport

It's Flashback Friday and I'm feeling optimistic. I feel like soon it will be time to blow the dust off my passport and head for places clear of snow and ice, places where things aren't familiar and where I will be a foreigner. Yes, I'm dreaming about being a tourist.

I know, I can't go - not yet. But I can dream. And who knows, maybe a trip is just around the corner or nearer the end of the year or at least close enough that I can begin thinking about it. So, thinking along that tract, there's no harm in looking back at old blog posts, past trips. And, as I did, I was reminded of one of the things I dislike about travel. Sure, there's a few things - long waits in airports, cramped airline seating but that's all ho hum standard. What is there at every stop, every custom's office and seems to be laughing at me like it was some cosmic joke is...

There really should be a drum roll inserted here...

Okay, here goes...

the passport picture.

Do any of them turn out good?

Did you ever have a passport picture that you wanted to show to anyone?

Not me. My thoughts are that if you've never been in trouble with the law and haven't had the opportunity to get a "mugshot", the next best thing is the passport photo.

"Don't smile," the photographer has almost invariably reminded me as they valiantly try to get a shot that is suitably sized and dreary enough to meet passport regulations. I've always thought that their direction should be followed by another. Something possibly in the line of, "don't grit your teeth" for invariably I always do. Is it possible to identify the animated person standing in an immigration checkpoint from that stilted, tight lipped picture on the passport?

One thing I have learned over the years is that when getting that dreaded snap - not to even attempt that second or even third retake. Why disappoint myself? I prefer to look like an escapee from a high risk security penitentiary in the first go around.

So, in a military dictatorship, in a country where I was particularly leery of the immigration process, I handed over my passport, bad photo and all, and waited. The immigration officer flipped through the pages, looked at the picture, looked again. And then he looked up at me and smiled broadly, "Must have been a bad day." He chuckled and stamped the book and that was that.