Jim The Passport Nazi

** Disclaimer: I apologize in advance to any and all Postal workers who happen to read this entry – not all of you are Nazi’s.

Until this year, I was not privy to the intricacies of the whole passport procurement process. I got my passport at 17 years old, during the second semester of my Junior year of high school, for a trip to Italy that I never got to go on because I needed to stay in the US and go to some soccer camps in the hope of finding one that would think my soccer skills good enough to let me go to their school for free. Which is to say, my mom got me my passport – I just grudgingly accompanied her to the photo mart to get my mug shots, so I was not fully aware of what a treasure trove of story value exists with the entire passport obtaining process… until now.

I won a trip for work, and Tim needs a passport to be able to go with me. The funniest part is that the trip is just to Canada, which of course a year ago (or so) we wouldn’t have even needed said passport, so he’s a little bitter to begin with. Otherwise, though, we are both very excited for a free and much needed vacation. Also, we’re excited because the post office we visit on a regular basis to get our mail contains a passport office run by a middle aged man named Jim who is, without question, smarter than everybody.

Jim works hard, keeping the long hours of 11:30am to 4:30pm Monday through Thursday, and seems to be constantly upset that there are always so many people crammed into line waiting to speak to him. Tim and I have heard many partial conversations between Jim and his poor subjects, and they are always very one-sided and include lots of very audible, annoyed-sounding sighs. Jim’s the kind of postal worker who believes that he has been tasked with absolutely crucial work, and he runs his passport office tighter than the military regiment he remembers from Nam. You must walk up and stop between 2 and 4 inches from the desk, present your documents facing Jim, and be able to rattle off answers to his 37 questions without hesitating for even a second or breaking eye contact with his intuitive lie detector-eyes.

When all was said and done, it was relatively easy for us to deal with Jim, but only because we’d had so much practice listening to his antics of torturing other would-be travelers. I think Jim and the Soup Nazi need to find each other – they are kindred souls and would be besties for sure.