passport? what´s that??
Reminded of this story by this post: http://community.livejournal.com/bad_service/1670451.html (and yeah, I know how to a href it, but spanish keyboards are confusing)
So I´m on a Greyhound heading to Chicago, where cigarettes are like $7 a pack. We stop at a place in Kentucky, where they´re more like $3. I try to buy a carton, but had recently lost my driver´s license. Had been carrying my passport around for situations just like this.
me: Hi, I´d like a carton of Camel Lights, please.
attendant: You have ID?
me: Sure, here. -hands passport-
attendant: what´s this? -holds it like it´s covered in anthrax-
me: -resists urge to point to the word ¨PASSPORT¨in no less than three languages on the front.- It´s a passport.
attendant: I don´t know if we can accept this. Don´t you have a driver´s license?
me: I lost it, that´s why I´m carrying around my passport.
attendant: (in a tone like she´s caught me in a lie) Then you´re driving without a license??!
me: No, I´m taking the bus. the Greyhound. -points to parking lot-
attendant: Well. Ok, where´s the...
- I help her find the page with my terrible picture and all the info-
attendant: This date isn´t good. It says 2007, you have to be born in 1990 or earlier.
me: That´s the date it was issued. Do I really look a year and a half old to you?
Ok, I can understand not having seen a passport before. Even the idea that only driver´s licenses are kosher, if you only ever see driver´s licenses and in Kentucky everybody who´s not destitute or disabled drives (and even some of them do, the public transport system in the South is so terrible), even though it´s a lot easier to fake a driver´s license than a passport. But seriously, 2007 is my birthdate?
So I´m on a Greyhound heading to Chicago, where cigarettes are like $7 a pack. We stop at a place in Kentucky, where they´re more like $3. I try to buy a carton, but had recently lost my driver´s license. Had been carrying my passport around for situations just like this.
me: Hi, I´d like a carton of Camel Lights, please.
attendant: You have ID?
me: Sure, here. -hands passport-
attendant: what´s this? -holds it like it´s covered in anthrax-
me: -resists urge to point to the word ¨PASSPORT¨in no less than three languages on the front.- It´s a passport.
attendant: I don´t know if we can accept this. Don´t you have a driver´s license?
me: I lost it, that´s why I´m carrying around my passport.
attendant: (in a tone like she´s caught me in a lie) Then you´re driving without a license??!
me: No, I´m taking the bus. the Greyhound. -points to parking lot-
attendant: Well. Ok, where´s the...
- I help her find the page with my terrible picture and all the info-
attendant: This date isn´t good. It says 2007, you have to be born in 1990 or earlier.
me: That´s the date it was issued. Do I really look a year and a half old to you?
Ok, I can understand not having seen a passport before. Even the idea that only driver´s licenses are kosher, if you only ever see driver´s licenses and in Kentucky everybody who´s not destitute or disabled drives (and even some of them do, the public transport system in the South is so terrible), even though it´s a lot easier to fake a driver´s license than a passport. But seriously, 2007 is my birthdate?