The Freelance Retort: On it Goes…Especially if You Don’t

One of the nicest things about post Labor Day beachin is that the beaches are pretty empty.

None of that joyful kid squealing as they frolic in the ocean waves, dig in the sand and do whatever it is that kids do at the beach stuff.

I mean is the beach really the place for joyful kid squealing?

Anyway, joyful squeals aside, the weather here, last week, was top 10 for anytime of the year.

Cool nights and warm days with negligible humidity.

The ocean was near gulf like in color and in temperature.

So that’s how we spent the midweek of not going.

Just reading and eating, with a mix of snoozing on the side,

Even Z gave in and conked out for a while; lists of lists of things undone in hand.

Couldn’t ask for anything better.

But of course there’s always a price to pay for such idleness, so the next day was catch up day; catching up on all the little nagging chores and errands that had been pushed aside the last few days.

Kind of the curse of the not going vacation.

That itchy feeling that the mundane details of everyday life need to be heeded…not going or not.

When you go, you can’t, so you don’t…and you don’t even think about it.

But when you don’t go…well, you know…you can, so you do…and some people can’t help but think about it.

Some people….

So we stayed home the next day and did things like mow the lawn, hit the dry cleaners, de-claw the neighbor’s cat, move the laundry along, etc. etc.

Oh…and ironically enough—you know, because of the not going—we went and applied for our passports because come January, we actually are going…someplace…somewhere…which requires a passport.

I know…it’s just September…really not that big of a rush…not that big of a deal.

But Z likes to stay ahead of theses deadline type things, lest we get caught short, start panicking to get it done at the last minute and end up procuring a passport from a guy named Stinky, behind the dumpster at Costco.

And to be honest, I appreciate that, since I would probably show up at the airport in January asking where the photo booth is.

So that was a big item on the agenda.

Especially since passports are good for 10 years and you don’t want to look like some sort of burned out rock n roller from the 80’s, which is kind of what I looked like on my last passport from 95.

Another story for another retort.

Anyway, this time was going to be different. This time we were going to do it right…so after 3 hours with the hair and makeup lady we were ready to go.

Or I was ready to go…Z, who insisted on doing her own hair and makeup, was rotating the tires…again…on the new car.

I elected to go the easy route for passport application, which meant a simple trip to the post office to submit our pre-filled applications, along with birth certificates, baptismal certificates, Z’s 8^th grade certificate of perfect attendance, honor society pins, Freshman history paper on the founding fathers and their mothers…plus anything else I could think of that would attest to our good citizenship.

We handed this all over to Buddy, a no nonsense postal employee who had just sent the woman ahead of us home in tears, telling her she would be lucky if her package made it to its destination by the next decade judging by the way it was addressed.

Buddy, who was visibly gnashing his teeth at the prospect of passport duty over stamp duty, looked through all of our documents and shook his head at the fact that I received a B+ on the founding fathers paper, which he thought deserved no better than a C-.

I told him it was graded on a curve and he grunted some more.

Eventually, he sorted through the pile of certificates and awards and took only Z’s birth certificate and my old expired passport…though he did congratulate Z on her perfect attendance record.

Then, it was the moment we had waited for as Buddy directed us over to the official post office professional passport photography area…which was a white wall by the window.

However, the light was perfect, but not so much the official post office professional passport photographer…which happened to be Buddy…who apparently also doubled as the official post office professional most wanted list photographer.

So in the end, despite our best efforts, our photos ended up looking like this….