Dear Passport Application: Don't Judge Me

Becky and I are getting married on Friday, September 16th, 2011.

The divorce from my first marriage was final on September 3rd, 2010.

I didn’t really think about that until I was filling you out.  I tried talking to you last year, but your marriage questions thwarted my efforts.  You didn’t just want to know if I was married, single, separated or divorced, you asked if I’ve ever been married.  Sure, whether one has been married informs a large part of one’s identity, but what do you care, passport?  You even wanted dates, and got picky about it.  You wouldn’t take my court appointment as the end date of my marriage because it was in the future.  Fine.

So here we are again.  I tell you the dates of my marriage.  I use Becky as my emergency contact.  Under relationship, I put fiance.  You ask why I need you.  I tell you for my honeymoon on 9/17/11, and you’re dated 4/21/11. 

It’s not like I got divorced, met a stranger, and got engaged in seven months, passport application.  It just looks that way.  

Listen, application - that marriage ended two years ago, more than two years ago, now.  Becky and I were colleagues, so even if I never looked at her in a certain light, I knew the cut of her jib.  She got divorced after I did and they hadn’t lived together for years, are you going to judge her, too?

You know what, application?  There are whole worlds out there you have no idea about, lives lived in the margins outside your paragraphs, emotions bubbling in the spaces between your lines.  You don’t even have ideas, you’re just paper.  Paper, and one really bad photo.

Guess what else?  I found my favorite white wine at Walgreens for $3.99 when I was getting that lousy picture taken.  You didn’t know that, did you? 

I do not have shitty taste in wine.

Look, I don’t need your attitude right now, okay?  It’s not my fault they made you more expensive and required you for a night in Niagara Falls.  Just do your job, get me over the border, and no one will get hurt.

In the meantime, let’s keep this between us.