I was so pleased with myself. The Big Girl’s passport exires in July, and I planned to apply for the renewal in Kansas City. Because she’s under fourteen, I have to apply in person.
One of the drawbacks of New York is that if you’re trying to do something, at least thirty other people are also trying to do it. And for something like a passport renewal–well, maybe it wouldn’t be a hassle, but I wouldn’t want to find out. And in Kansas City, you just hop in your car and go; somehow that makes it seem a lot easier.
At Christmas, I applied for the Little Girl’s passport in Kansas City, and it couldn’t have been quicker or easier.
So I gathered the application form, passport photos, and the notarized letter from the Big Man, allowing me to apply for a passport without his presence. Then, just before we were about to set off, I decided to double-check the passport agency’s website. And I saw that I needed the Big Girl’s birth certificate–which I’d left in New York.
I’m so annoyed with myself. Usually I double- and triple-check requirements like this; what happened?
Because I’d thought I’d avoided having to do this errand in New York, it now looms even more horribly in my mind. Aargh.
When I was young, I was puzzled by the adage: “A stich in time saves nine.” I just didn’t understand the meaning of the sentence. Then finally light dawned: “Oh, it means that taking one stich right away saves needing to take nine stitches later.”
Like many wise old sayings, it’s absolutely true. If I’d taken fifteen seconds to double-check the requirements on-line before leaving New York, I’d have made my task a lot easier. Plus I would have been able to do an annoying errand during a vacation day, instead of a work day. (Unlike many wise old sayings, “A stitch in time saves nine” isn’t contradicted by some other wise old saying. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” and “Out of sight, out of mind.” “He who hesitates is lost” and “Haste makes waste.”
Oh, well. I remind myself of another wise old saying: “Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.”
