the story of my passport

 

Chiang Mai - After 44 days of being held hostage by various organizations such as DHL, the foreign embassy, and even for a brief time by my own mother, My Passport has finally been returned to me in good condition this afternoon – with only an extra entry visa to show for its trouble.

My Passport and I arrived in Thailand on Halloween, but it was taken from me by DHL on Nov. 1 with demands that a new visa be placed inside it before it could be released to its rightful owner. My Passport was transported by various methods including planes and mail trucks across several continents before reaching the deserts of El Paso. “The package,” as it was referred to, was given to my mother who was apparently in on the entire plan (the more hands involved in a complex situation the better). She was merely a middle(wo)man though, passing on the package to the foreign embassy’s outsourcing company which delivered it to its final destination – the embassy.

Now this is where the story gets tricky. The demands of the embassy were simple: a couple hundred dollars and allowing them to permanently mark the passport with a new visa. After some consideration and signing the right legal documents I agreed to the terms set forth by the captors, but things didn’t progress as quickly as expected. The original terms of the agreement were three weeks, but I’d heard from people in similar situations that the captors would occasionally set the hostages free early. That was not the case this time. Three weeks came and passed, but there was no word from the captors… uhm, I mean embassy.

Four weeks passed, and it seemed that they had forgotten about the hostage all together. An interview with My Passport immediately after release revealed that it is very likely that they did forget about it. Reports show that My Passport spent 99.99998% of its time on a desk lying with a stack of other hostages labeled “Not Yet.”

How the embassy came to remember My Passport and the other hostages is still unclear, but they did eventually follow through with their end of the agreement, completing a 27 second process before boxing “the package” back up and sending it to my mother who was able to successfully arrange for the release of the hostage in a matter of days.

My Passport was handed over unhurt this afternoon, and after a day or two of recovery we are planning to head to put My Passport's new “scar” to use.

- एरिक