Love and Life

My first request to my congressman:

MY PASSPORT!
I don't know if I've heard of anyone having as much trouble as I did ...
After waiting for 11 weeks for my passport to arrive I began to call the passport agency (to no avail), and checking online to find out the status of my application. I called the Federal Passport agency relentlessly, and after getting hung up on 20 times, I began to be frustrated ... and worried. Its now been 13 weeks before I finally got through to talk to someone, only to be devestated by the response:
"Oh. I'm sorry your application is in Charleston and hasn't been opened yet".

I of course, start freaking out, and call my dad to fix it. He calmly assures me that he will take care of it. He calls my congressman, and Kristin, at Congressman McCarthy's office totally hooked me up-- well sorta. She finds my application (which was BURIED in North Carolina) and has it FedExed overnight. I checked it out, and thought I was ready to go. That is, until Wednesday, June 20, at 1:00am when a friend was looking at my new passport and said, "umm Kiley? This isn't your last name..." I look at my passport again and see the name: KILEY HURT. ok, honestly? My name is NOT difficult! 4 letters--its a word, a brand even!! So Thursday morning, 7am, I am back on the phone with the passport agency. It only took 5 calls to speak with someone this time. Only to be told that I would need to take new passport photos, and head to the LA Federal Building (see below)



to wait in line and pray to get a new one printed that day. (Friday, June 22 was my best friends wedding, and my flight left Monday June 25 at 10am, so Thursday was my only chance).

So I headed off to LA. While on my way Kristin, once again hooked me up and got me a special handling appt so I wouldn't have to wait in the horrendous line. To my surprise, however, the special handling appt only got me so far. Once i was inside the building, there was another horrendous line! This time it was up to me to get ahead. I put a smile on my face and began to strut my stuff. The officer totally bought it, and before I knew it I was at the front of the line :) They couldn't print my passport that afternoon, so my amazing mother went to LA on Friday (since i was in the wedding) and waited in line for 3 hours to pick up my passport. I told her to start flirting in line, but she declined ...



Do YOU want to be one of those people in the photograph? I didn't think so. If you have problems with your passport -- call you congressman and brush up on your flirting skills.