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So I trooped down to CVS and had them take a photo and email me the digital image.
The State Department has a 'beta' version of an online passport renewal service. They warn that it may take several months to get your passport, but I don't *really* need the passport right away, so this looked good to me.
The site isn't bad. I had to retype the same info a few times on various forms, but otherwise, it's well designed.
About two weeks later, I got a priority slow-mail from the US Govt with my new passport in it.
Nice!
Carol got her first passport about the time most of us are getting our first library card. Having a passport was a requirement to go to Spain when her dad was sent to Madrid.
Her family visited as many countries as they could while they were in Spain, so she got used to having her passport on her person when she was travelling.
She came back to the US and went straight to Smith College from the Purple Hyatt in Skokie, IL, where Sears put them up until her folks found a new home. She barely had time to change her clothes.
She arrived in the first week of school: finding dorms, meeting room-mates and registration. No classes yet, so the students have nothing to do in the evenings. When a few of her fellow students invited Carol to join them on a trip to the local bar, she went along.
The bartenders know that about half the incoming freshman class is under 18 (the legal drinking age back then). The 17 year olds try to tag along with their 18 year old friends every year.
So, when a gaggle of girls comes into the near-campus bar, everyone gets carded before they get their beer.
Carol's friends obligingly showed their driver's licences and got their drinks.
Then we come to Carol. Not growing up in the US, Carol did not have a driver's license, but having just flown back to the States, she still had her passport in her purse.
She handed the passport to the bartender who looked at it, looked at her and said, "What the hell kind of fake ID is this? You don't even look like this picture!" She was ten when the passport photo was taken, and now she's 18, so yeah.
He then refused to return her "fake ID", which sent Carol into a furious panic. For eight years of living in Europe, that passport had been the most important document she owned.
She told him it was illegal to steal her passport and demanded he return it immediately.
After a few minutes of shouting, the bartender threatened to call the cops, and Carol told him that if he didn't she would.
The bartender did call the cops to report the angry under-aged drinker with the fake ID.
Luckily, the cop knew what a passport was, told the bartender that this was the most valid ID available in the country and that holding it was illegal.
Carol got her passport back, but by then she did not want a drink (much as she may have needed it.)