Passport Photos

Jon and I realized yesterday that we needed to renew Dominic's and my passports before we could purchase tickets for a trip we are taking. We were out late running errands and ran into Walmart to get some quick photos. That was our first mistake. We were told at the photo counter that the guy who takes the passport pictures was at lunch and should be back in 20 minutes. "But he's always late, so maybe you should come back in 30 min." What?! Sure enough the guy was 10 minutes late from lunch. 

He was rather skanky, but that shouldn't matter, right? He takes our pictures and tells us to be back in 30 minutes. We are standing right there in front of the photo center the entire time. When I returned he told me that he'd forgotten to put the memory card in the camera and he needed to take the photos again. I was really upset. He promised me that it would only take 10 minutes this time. I know he saw me standing there during that 30 minutes. But even if he didn't, he never paged us. Sigh! So we wait again and 15 minutes later we have our pictures. As he hands them to me, he mentions that he couldn't get Dominic's to fit the parameter that's required so he's giving us all of the ones he took of him. I almost strangled him right then.

Today Jon takes off work and we go to the Justice Center. For some reason the post office doesn't do the passports in our town. I have come to the conclusion that the Justice Center is where you go to find the grossest of society. There are a ton of people just standing around outside. Most are smoking, but some are just waiting for their court appearances. I couldn't find one that had all of their teeth. And I might have grown up poor, but my mom would have died before she let us out in public looking like most of these people. They were gross and stinky. 

I noticed that the employees hit the handicap button beside the door to have the doors open for them. They won't touch the actual door. That should tell you something. Ick!

We go inside, wait in line and sign everything only to be told that our passport pictures aren't good enough!

It's a really good thing that the little guy from Walmart wasn't standing there.

I went and had more pictures taken at the place reccommended by the woman at the passport desk.

But it added to my annoyance. Last night I had make-up on and my hair was fixed. Today I look like I belong on the steps of the justice center. =) (Except I still have teeth and no tattoos.)  And Dominic looked rather unloved himself. So now for the next 10 years I have to stare at my ponytail in my passport and think about a skanky Walmart dude. Rrrrr!

So we shall try again this evening. And before you ask - NO! I refuse to post any of those pictures on this blog. It's bad enough that two of them will be in our passports for five and ten years.

Update:
All of the passports have been sent off with correct pictures and Walmart refunded my money.