Passport Panic

This actually happened three years ago during my first trip to Guatemala. I was so nervous after being dropped off at the airport. While standing in line to check my bags I felt for the passport and it wasn't there! I had a panic attack and called my husband who was just leaving the airport. He "talked me down" and I found it. Whew.


Well, to avoid such panics in the future, I wisely purchased a passport & special documents thingamajiggy that I can wear around my neck. I then carefully put the passport, IDs, cards in it.

Today, standing in line to check my bags, I was wearing the passport thingy around my neck. And just like three years ago, I went to get my passport and once again...and IT WAS NOT THERE! I could not believe it. How could this happen again?! My hands were shaking as I dialed the cell to get my husband and got the wrong number. So now I'm fumbling for my reading glasses because I'm stranded and blind. Maybe, maybe they will let me get my boarding tickets while we wait for the passport to arrive I thought irrationally. There was not enough time for him to go all the way home and return with the passport before the plane departed. Where was it anyways? I had PUT IT IN THE THINGY!

His phone went to voicemail and I gave him the "alert" then continued searching my bags though I knew it was futile. I put the passport in the "thingy" before leaving the house. It wasn't in the bags. Then I heard my name being called. Yes? There was an airline representative calling my name. Why? Then I saw in her hand a passport. OMIGOD. It had fallen out of the passport thingy when I put it around my neck. I had put it in the top part that folds over so it slipped out.

I thanked her and everyone clapped for me as I crammed it down in the bottom part of the thingy instead of the top part that folds over. Crisis averted again.....whew.