Monday, November 16, 2009

Priceless

AAA membership renewal ... $42
Passport fees to State Department ... $134.85
USPS fees ... $17.50
Certified copy of Claire's birth certificate ... $10
Front-and-back copies of my driver's license at post office ... $.30
Claire's passport photo ... $6 (waived)*
Keeping Claire happy while waiting one hour as brand-new AAA employee did her first membership renewal and child's passport ... $30 (conservatively)*
Being able to travel internationally, even with Claire ... priceless

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* The AAA experience was something else. I had a bad feeling when the new employee told me Claire didn't need a passport photo; luckily, I knew that was wrong since Riley got a passport at about the same age.

It was interesting to watch her progress from initially trying to downplay her inexperience ("Mondays are always busy here, but we love it") to admitting she'd been in training all last week ("but we didn't learn about passports"). At least three times she commented with a bright smile, "Oh, that's another thing I didn't know!"

The kicker was when she called me at home three hours later to say she'd punched my credit card number in wrong and it hadn't gone through and could I please give it to her again. First days suck.

1 comment:

Libba said...

that's hilarious. i want to hear more about how you had to hold her to get this picture and got her to smile at the same time. haha.