Passports

To loose something really, really, really important has got to be the pits.  Kate’s Mum has been there a few times loosing her mothers wedding ring twice but thankfully finding it on both occasions when the family upturned the house, but not so lucky with her engagement and wedding rings which were both studded with diamonds.  She is convinced to this day that they were stolen.  As for Kate and I, our time in America has been fantastic until that dreadful day when we found the small travel satchel containing ‘our life’ was missing:

Of course the blood drains from your face and you feel a cold chill running all over your body as you stand there in stunned disbelief.  Now, how did all this happen?  We were living in a caravan adjacent to Kate’s family farm house and I’d safely stored the satchel in a cupboard together with my wallet and there it stayed happily for 5 weeks while we did all the farm things: babysitting four adopted children under five, keeping the cattle where they should be away from the growing corn and soy beans, feeding a menagerie of animals including three emus, painting the house and having fun trips here and there.  A busy but pleasant stay with walks to the rustic bridge down the road and with the warm summer sun on our faces.

I’m usually so careful with travel documents after a stint in Asia in the late 70’s where I learnt to really have your wits about you.  I guess I’d become complacent especially since we were living in rural Iowa and our next door neighbours were about a mile away.

Day 1 Sunday:  Kate and I decide to pack our bags so that we can take her mother up to Sioux Falls to stay at her sister’s place for a few days.  I pack my purple suitcase and wonder if I should put the passport satchel in the sleeve since we need to fill out our American taxes there.  I pack my case but leave it open just inside the door to our caravan.  That evening I take both our suitcases next door to stay at Kate’s sister’s place which is alongside the family farmhouse leaving them open on the lounge floor.  We have the house to ourselves so there is no need to worry about anything.

Day 2 Monday:  We complete packing but both of us do babysitting and other chores during the day.

Day 3 Tuesday:  Unbeknown to me, Kate gets a call at 2 am to help with the kids because they’ve caught a bug and are vomiting.  I rise early and pack the car ready to leave.  Kate tells me later that since the kids are sick we’d better stay another day to help out.  I unpack the car and put our suitcases back in the lounge.

Day 4 Wednesday: We rise early, I repack the car and we head off mid morning 150 miles north to Sioux Falls.  We arrive and are greeted by Kate’s sister Maureen and her husband H.L.  I unpack the car and put our cases in the lower level bedroom below the living area.  I open my purple case and pull out the dirty laundry from behind the sleeve. 

Day 5 Thursday:   We rise at 5 am to take Maureen and HL to the Airport since Maureen has to present some Biology papers in Vancouver, Canada.  We drive her luxury car in and drop them off and for our return journey Kate suggests that I drive as usual since I am such a safe driver.  We exit the airport but I miss the highway we should take.  We look for the nearest road to correct my error and soon we find one.  Now just drop a ‘Uie’ and we should be right.  I thought “it’s great travelling at this time of the day because there is no one on the roads.  I soon realised that this was a mistake as I found myself returning on a one way road with a Semi and a pickup bearing down on us.  Fortunately I was not going fast but I blinked in fright as I contemplated mounting the curve and the nature strip.  As the drivers honked and passed by to my left I felt the adrenalin pumping through my body.  “Jeez – I’m wide awake now”, I thought and as I looked across at Kate I could see that the colour had left her face.  It suddenly occurred to me that it’s so easy to go down a two lane one way road looking for a turn and not notice the small parallel sign warning ‘ONE WAY’ which saves you from a ‘wreck’ as they call it over here.  “Please don’t tell your sister we could have ‘totalled’ her pride and joy mere minutes from the Airport” I cautioned Kate.

Day 6 – 7 Friday, Saturday:  We all have a relaxing time.  Kate loves having her Mum to herself.

Day 8 Sunday:  We get a call from the Farm to come back because the corn is ready to pick.  We pack up but Kate and I leave most of our gear behind because we’re coming back in a few days.  I take my wallet and wonder if I have our passports.  I take a quick look on the floor and surmise that they must be back in the caravan since I thought they were too important to take with us.  We travel back in the afternoon and as I approach the farm I become more and more tense hoping that the passports are exactly where they’ve always been.  I don’t tell Kate of my anxiety but head straight for the locked caravan.  Soon enough I’m in and expectantly open the cupboard door – THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NOTHING INSIDE.  I go through the routine – “this can’t really be happening.  Please wake me up from this bad dream.  It occurs to me that we now may not have a name or country anymore!!  OK………OK ……… calm down …….. you’ve hidden it in more secure place in the van,”  I try to console myself.  “Right, …….. now let’s just search this sucker high and low!”  I hunt calmly and then more earnestly and finally come to the awful conclusion that it’s just not here!  It then suddenly occurs to me that the satchel must be in the sleeve of my purple suitcase back in Sioux Falls because I needed it for my taxes”, I thought.  “OK, no worries – everything’s sweet” as I happily went in to greet Kate’s mum, her brother Mike and the kids.

Day 9 Tuesday:  We pick a ute load of corn on Pat’s farm who is Kate’s older sister.  The extended family arrive and we peel (chuck) the corn and I’m put in charge of boiling the corn husks for 15 minutes a time in large tubs.  From there the corn is carried to the kitchen where Kate and her Mum remove the corn kernels and seal them in plastic bags for the winter months.  (………. As an aside I’ve just returned from downstairs as a mob of wild turkeys have been causing a commotion by attacking the windows thinking their reflections were adversaries.)

Day 10 Wednesday:  I pick up boxes of beautiful home grown tomatoes.  The one’s we remember as kids that are large, with the right colour red and have a delicious flavour.  Kate and her mum peel the tomatoes, boil them, her Mum adds the secret ingredients and they are also bottled up for the winter.

Day 11 Thursday:  Kate and I can’t convince her mum to come up to Sioux Fall again so we drive back and as I reach our destination I become more and more anxious.  “Surely those passports are in sleeve on my suitcase.”  We unpack the car and then it’s time to face the music.  As soon as I see the purple suitcase I realise there is not a bulge indicating our passport satchel.  “This is a time for panic and stress with a CAPITAL S”,  I mumbled under my breath as I gazed with a steely stare.   “No hang on”, I thought, “these passports are too valuable so I’ve hidden them somewhere so no one can find them.”  Poor Kate, I felt sorry for her.  She was so weary from the work on the farm, the travel and now this!   I tell you what ……..we searched every nook and cranny of that house and then started looking in places where I knew the passports couldn’t be.  When you’re desperate you’ll resort to desperate measures.  I try to take time out to think and get my thoughts back in order.  “I failed to search the bathroom area in the caravan, maybe I’ve hidden the passports in there”,  I thought as I clutched at any straw that presented itself.  We rang Kate’s younger sister, MaryAnne and asked her to check the trailer again.  But as the minutes turned into a quarter of an hour I had this awful feeling of doom and surrender.  When the phone eventually rang I could tell by MaryAnne’s voice that there was no good news.  I realise now that we are in serious trouble.  What does this mean?  I log into the Internet and get all the warnings from the Australian Embassy in Washington that I should have taken heed of:

Please note that it is an offence not to report the incident as soon as practicable after you become aware of the loss or theft of your Australian passport.

Remember: always keep your passport in a safe place, whether you are at home or abroad!

- In many countries passports are prime target of theft for illegal purposes

- Considerable inconvenience and disruption to travel plans may result from the theft or loss of your passport

If you are replacing your passport, you will need to:

·         complete an overseas passport application form,

·         provide details of the lost passport,

·         attend an interview,

·         pay the current fee of $150

Practically, I guaged that in the US where there is constant vigilance and paranoia with terrorism since 9/11 the process could take a couple of months.  We would have to fly to our nearest consulate in Chicago for our interview and with hotel fees, taxi fees etc etc. my lack of care could cost us about $1500 US.

This info really knocked the stuffing out of both of us as we resigned ourselves to our fate and lay back in our easy chairs like wrung out dish rags.  Our holiday in Sioux Falls was rapidly turning into a nightmare.  We decide to return to the farm once more to do thorough search.

Day 12 – Friday:  We rock up to the farm after another 150 mile journey.  We’re only getting by on a few hours of sleep.  Kate’s eating comfort food and I’m not really hungry at all.  We search until we drop – the caravan again, the farm house, Maryanne’s house, her basement, the kid’s toy boxes and desperately in places where I know the satchel can’t be.  I don’t know how many times I’ve been over all the scenarios in my mind.  I sit down in the trailer and try to think back to my thought patterns when I first packed.  Kate questions me in a helpful way but my mind has become so confused.  I try to talk myself into what may have happened.  “Maybe someone came in and stole it because our van was usually unlocked.  No ……no ……… the dogs would have barked”  I then remembered that I went to the bank three weeks ago to open up a savings account.  Of course they wanted ID so I gave them my drivers license which I always carried in my wallet.  Surely, I wouldn’t have taken the passport satchel into town as well?  “This was like a detective trying to solve a crime” I drearily thought.  “Was there something I was overlooking?”  As evening approaches I decide to take a lone walk to the bridge and pray once more to the Lord for trust and faith.  I also found myself resorting to uttering a deal with God.  “If I find the passports we’ll give $100 to the Church in Crow Creek when we return in a week’s time to put the new books on the shelves which Kate ordered last month.”  I then recited the rosary and decided the sorrowful mysteries were appropriate but I finished off with ‘Finding of Jesus in the temple’.  I thought, “this is only a passport, just imagine the agony of parents loosing their son for three days?”  I prayed for a happy ending to this whole drama.  That night I log into our bank account on the Net to see why our balance has dropped by $860 and to my relief find that our health insurance has automatically been deducted for the last two months.

Day 13 – Saturday:  I wake up at 2 a.m.  No doubt my subconscious has been working overtime.  “That’s it!  That suitcase was open on the floor for two days before I left so it’s possible that I’m not to blame at all.  The kids had access to that case so one of them must have removed the satchel and put it somewhere” I coolly surmised.  This became confirmed in my mind since in one of Kate’s phone calls to the local police station she was informed that little girls see zipped wallets as purses and they are particularly attractive if there is jingling money inside.  For the first time in days, I became relaxed as I could see light at the end of the tunnel.  We just need to search everywhere low – under couches, in toy boxes – outside.  Previously I was sure that the satchel could not be in either house so we had not searched as thoroughly as we might.  I rose around 6 am and I was ready for action.  By that stage the baby was awake and needed a bottle.  This was my opportunity to search the first bedroom.  I moved systematically through the drawers and when I felt a buckle I thought this was it but my hopes were dashed when I discovered a child’s purse.  I then scoured the top of the dresser.  There was a heap of odds and ends there and finally I noticed a plastic bag.  I reached inside and my eyes almost popped as I became reunited with our identity.  I threw the satchel down on the bed and stared as tears of happiness and relief welled up in my eyes.  When I regained composure I floated back to the caravan to convey the unbelievable news to Kate.  A burden had been lifted from our shoulders.  The mystery is solved - Kaitlin  the four year old removed it from the purple suitcase and took it to her room.  But I cautioned Kate:  first let us see what else is inside the plastic bag before we jump to confusions.  When I returned to the house and opened the bag the puzzled was solved. 

When I went to the bank in the local town of Logan I needed ID so I took my wallet, passport satchel and other odds and ends in a plastic bag.  When I returned home I put the plastic bag on top of the microwave and had a cup of tea.  Connie, who is a neighbour and does the cleaning each Friday picked up the bag and thinking it belonged to Mike, Kate’s brother, she put it on the dresser in the downstairs bedroom.  It made me shiver to think it had been there all this time.

I was elated and decided to take a walk to the bridge.  The sun was shining, the birds were singing happy tunes, the cool breeze was running though my hair and as ‘Mave’ the Australian Shepherd joined me with a joyful face and a wag of her tail, I thought – “all’s well with the world”.