I hold in my sweaty hands, four passports. Within each passport lie two Golden Tickets: a visa to India and a visa to Nepal. My hands are sweaty for the simple reason that I picked these up on Thursday and our flight was on Friday. That's cutting it a bit closer than I like, by a margin the size of Texas.
You might wonder, "What madness is this?" Jeff certainly did, when he turned to me at some point during the frenzy that ultimately resulted in our being able to use our airline tickets to India, as opposed to not being able to use them, and said, "I think we should be better at this by now." Indeed.
Some data points: in my town, it takes two working days to get a tourist Visa to India. And you can get the Nepal visa in 30 minutes. So beginning the process three weeks out seemed reasonable. I mean, how many times does "two business days" fit into three weeks? Quite a few by my calculations, so I figured I had a huge margin.
And I would have, had all of our ducks actually been in anything even vaguely resembling a line, instead of looking more like a poultry supernova.
There are two grown ups in my household, each of whom has two valid, legit, we can travel on 'em passports. It so happened on close inspection, as I was gearing up to visit the Indian "visa office," which is not even a proper consulate, but a Visa Processing Office, that one of these passports was on walk-about and one of these passports was expired.
I know, you are thinking, "How in the blistering blue barnacles does a person misplace a passport?" Eh, it happens. I had a friend whose husband was traveling to Very Sensitive Areas on Serious Official Business who managed to misplace his passport before a Super Important Trip. The flurry of activity surrounding that one puts any of my amateur efforts to shame, but the net of the story was that the missing passport eventually turned up on their scanner. I checked there first. Nope.
I will tell you that the missing passport here is a Red Herring. The person who misplaced it was worried, but had vague memories of moving it from the Place It Always Lives to a New, Safer Place, but just couldn't remember where that might be. The apartment isn't that big, so a few days later, the New, Safer Place was located, and Missing Passport Person felt smug. And promptly put the passport back in the Place It Always Lived, eschewing forever the New, Safer Place, because, clearly, "New" and "Safer" didn't work out so well. But this particular passport was not needed for India, so it wasn't critical to the success of the visa venture.
The expired passport, which was actually critical? It was not even, like, oh, there are only four months left before this expires, so you can't use it for a visa, but, it had expired six month past. And this became one of two Big Problems in our story, because, this passport belonged to a person who changes countries like most people change underwear, and so cannot be without a passport, basically, ever. Which is why this person has two in the first place.
To get an Indian visa in Austria, you need to drop your passport at the consulate for two business days. Although, it turns out, it's actually five business days if you are the dodgy sort, which, the person with the expired passport is. No comment.
You also need to provide written proof that you have been in Austria for two years. Which, the dodgy expired passport person has not. If you were the dodgy sort who lived in the Czech Republic, well, you were going to need more like two weeks to get a visa. And go to Prague to do it. Second Big Problem.
Because, and here is the crux of the whole Why Some People Need Two Passports thing, the person who had the expired Passport wasn't going to be able to give up the one, single non-expired passport for more than two days in a row, because, the busy beaver passport was going to be in continuous use during the three week window. The point of having two passports is for exactly this sort of "crisis" (and I put "crisis" in quotes for the obvious reason that this is a Queen of the First World Problems sort of "crisis," and not a real, actual crisis, like your house burning down, or not having money for food), where you need to drop one passport off at a consulate, and travel on the other.
Plus, Prague? As much as I love Prague, it's far away, and, there are very short timeframes for drop off and pick up of forms and passports. On the face of it, without the application of Time Travel, things did not look good.
Now, to be clear, none of this, Prague, the expired passport, the Red Herring missing passport, would have been a problem if the Person Who Is Responsible for Getting Visas had started two weeks earlier. Actually, even two or three days earlier would have made a difference in the stress levels. But, no. In addition to being Queen of the First World Problems and Misplacer of Important Documents, this person is also Procrastinator, Extraordinare.
And so the formula for a Visa Vortex: Procrastination + Expired Passport + Wrong! Country! = You Need It When??
When I approached the Indian Consulate That-is-Really-a-Visa-Processing-Unit with my problem, they were pretty direct: "Wow. Whoa. Ah, no, no, there is nothing we can do to help you. Go to Prague, do not pass go, do not collect 200€." Whereupon my brain clicked into gear and I went into Alternate Scenario Mode: 20 seconds into it and I had Plan B, Plan C, Plan D and Plan F (Plan F was actually, "We're just f&*ed, Easter is canceled this year," so maybe I shouldn't count that one).
But the crisis plans, baby? They were just there. I knew what to do next.
I know, I'm good. But this is actually worrisome, don't you agree?
I knew a guy once who was the head of the Crisis Team for a large oil company. Great guy, really interesting, but serious adrenaline junkie. His entire life was putting out fires. He worked for Exxon. There were some big fires. At some point, as his children entered their teens and went off the rails, he decided to quit Crisis Management and attempt to salvage something of a more normal life.
He put together a plan, we'll call it the "Yoga-Meditation-Breath Deeply Plan for Life," executed the plan and went down eighteen months later a flaming Hot-Yoga heap. He lost everything: all retirement savings, his house, kids went into jail and rehab, and his wife divorced him. Basically, the guy was really great at crisis, but not at much else.
I realized to my horror, as I exited the Indian Consulate, mind a-swirl with alternate scenarios, that I am that guy. I think I like my life all peaceful and quiet and lovely, but, really, I need a good crisis to get my blood going, so, instead of getting off my butt and getting the visas taken care of immediately, I dawdled, lounged and frittered away my time until, CRISIS!!! And then solved the crisis. Honestly, not the smartest way to live.
You know I "fixed" the problem I created because I have the visas. I'm not going to divulge all the details, but suffice to say, I did not have to drive to Prague and it was all done completely above board (no! broom! closets!). But, really, wouldn't it just have been easier to start earlier? There is a lesson to be learned here, if I can just work out how to apply it.
Next: Why, Yes, We Are Actually In Nepal, As You Are Reading This, Thanks For Asking
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