This is a travel tale…but with a difference – this time it won’t be about my own adventures…instead it’s about a close personal friend of mine, he has saw me through some tough times, and has been with me through thick and thin – he’s a travel companion of sorts, who has recently had his own first solo voyage.
I’m talking of course, about my passport.
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You see my passport finally returned to me yesterday, it was such a joyous moment – filled with laughter and happiness! When I first saw it I just stared at it in disbelief…it’d been so long…but it almost felt like we had never parted – then I snapped out of this romantic daydream, and remembered the NIGHTMARE that has been the last couple of months…
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This is the trail that my passport has been on – the locations will probably make some people jealous…but, please see past that if possible, and realize the torment and sheer hell my poor passport has really been through…
- So firstly, upon direct request of the Indian embassy in South Korea, my passport jetted off (at great expense) to London for a little spot of sightseeing! It was a little pissed off initially, as it had wanted to stay in Korea with me…but once it became mandatory it decided to make the most of it!
- Next, in a bizarre turn of events, the Indian embassy in London told my passport that it wouldn’t be granted a visa for India…that we should have organized it in Korea instead…this really put a dampener on things…it still tried all the tourist stuff anyway, but just couldn’t enjoy it…it didn’t even crack a smile on the London Eye! To make matters worse there was no refund, and it was told that it wouldn’t be able to fly back home to reunite with its nearest and dearest.
- I tried everything I could to get it back…I sent email after email, I called, and called, and called…any reply was few and far between, and always, ALWAYS cryptically moronic. That’s giving them way too much credit – as the service was actually straight fucking garbage; I have had more fruitful conversations with grave stones, at least they don…ahem…sorry, I was trying to keep this light hearted…so yeah my passport…
- The passport was stranded, still. After months of wrangling, and payment after payment that seemed to do nothing, (in my mind the whole office went out for spa days using my cash, and that is why they didn’t ever answer the phone! They were just so damned relaxed!) I finally SNAPPED. I needed my friend with me, I missed it – we were always together, you could say we were in each other’s pockets…the sense of loneliness was horrendous…I wanted to feel its body next to mine. I decided to pay WHATEVER it takes to make this happen.
- So I got DHL involved…and guess what? It even took them AGES to get a hold of the embassy to arrange pick up, as again they never answered the phone! (The whole office probably went out for full body massages…) But EVENTUALLY DHL came to the rescue…and we were reunited in Korea at long last. Phew. Close call…we have a holiday booked up in a week’s time!
I don’t even want to do the mathematics of how expensive it was for me to effectively give my passport to someone and have they give me it back with NOTHING AT ALL changed. I feel like anyone would happily jump at the chance to make money from doing absolutely fuck all…in fact it is a fantastic way to make money, I can’t even pretend it isn’t – what a wonderful system! Obviously there are cons…such as selling your soul to the devil, and effectively being an absolute fucking scoundrel…a lying and robbing cheating scumbag if you will– but hey, that’s basically every job, right? RIGHT?!
So change of plans, my passport and I are off to Nepal on Monday, they have an on arrival visa system which seems pretty straight forward – after this whole ordeal we are SO ready for some rest and recuperation…tales will follow no doubt!
Anyway, this will probably be the last story I will write for a little while – I can’t imagine that I will find much time up in the Himalayas to whip out my laptop and start typing away…and if I do somehow find space, I would further doubt that there would be WIFI!
So just a few little announcements while I am here!
After two months Storytime with John is doing wonderfully,in my humble opinion – I am very pleased, I have over 2,000 followers and I’ve got almost 30,000 views…I have absolutely no fucking idea if that is ‘good’ or not – but for a small town boy like me, it is nothing short of amazing. So thank you! Thank you for your continued readership and support! I always think ‘follower’ sounds a little weird…like kind of religion(ish), or at the very least cult(ish)…do my followers actually follow me? Like into battle or whatever? For example if I wanted to lay siege to the Indian embassy in London…you’d all be with me, right?
Well, I digress…I have one more news piece, that a couple of you are aware of – I had some rather interesting meetings as of late – with a comic book producer…long story short, he is interested in possibly launching a new comic based on Storytime with John – very exciting stuff! I’ll keep you posted on that…I don’t want to give too much away…
Stay out of trouble while I am gone my friends, you’ll hear from me soon!
Love John x
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John Lee Taggart 
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