Memoirs of a Domicile Wanderer

Behold below a reflection on an experience which all of you fellows who have travelled abroad can relate to, written by my famous sister Leah, orginally published in her very own online periodical A Penetrating Glimpse into the Obvious. [It was my line before it was hers. She just brought it to a new level].

Et Tu Passport Offices!
Have you ever noticed that no beautiful people hang out in passport offices? It’s not that all people graced with good looks, confidence and self esteem avoid traveling so as to not have to go into said government offices, or even that the people in the passport offices are inherently ugly. They may be quite attractive people; this simply does not shine through in the every-day-run-‘o-the-mill local passport office. It’s as if the passport pictures with their bland expressions and criminal offences against the laws of aesthetics print themselves on their model’s face for the period of time that one is that cursed building. Why is this though? Could it possibly be because deep down inside everyone hates traveling? Hardly. It would be quite difficult for cruises and hotels to stay in business if this were the case ( unless, of course, most people are also emotional masochists who derive some sort of perverse pleasure from the pain of having a good time ). Perhaps it is part of everyone’s resentment towards the government. This is reasonably understandable as one is forced to dish out $87 just to have a little booklet with a nasty miserable little picture of oneself and a stamp, just so that one can leave the country that issued it in the first place. This indeed might explain why some dislike passport offices. But there are many people who are perfectly happy to observe civil obedience, so there must be something deeper than all of this that makes passport offices the hotbed of misery that they are. The real, solid, undeniable and inarguable reason for the apparent misery of people waiting in passport offices is the general décor and atmosphere of the place. Yes, the bland, mind-numbingly boring colours of the building and its strange speckled tile which they try to convince you actually started out its pathetic existence that strange dirt colour. But, the tile and the walls put aside, the atmosphere created by everyone else waiting is what makes everyone miserable. Yes, it is the self-perpetuating cycle of misery. Even if there is one person in the room smiling it won’t last long because everyone else in the room will glare at them – how dare they be happy in the place of sacred misery? - until they lower their gaze, ashamed of their cheerfulness. And that, my dear observers, is why beautiful will never be seen in passport offices.