The Quintessential Guide to Travel Attire
or, How to Look Dumb on Vacation:
the true story of ball dropping in a onesie
Since our children were old enough to be left home alone, we have celebrated our anniversary by road-tripping to a city we’ve never been to before, and this year—with much anticipation, grandiose visioning, and planning set in motion a whole year ago (when my husband started banking overtime and clearing the future days off with HR so that when October arrived, we would be ready)—our sights were set on New Orleans.
Blessed with a partner who trusts me with all the planning, I was in charge of everything. From plotting our route, to booking hotels, to making lists of every important Anne Rice location I needed to see—it was all up to me, and I loved it. Planning a road trip is like playing with Lego: each brick is a stop, and as you strategically place brick after brick, you can build something truly amazing.
Our morning of departure arrived. I donned the green camouflage onesie—unfit for public appearances but wonderfully comfortable for long days of travel in the car. We hugged the children goodbye and sent them off to school and work. The crisp air promised smooth sailing as I piled our already packed bags by the door—there has never been anyone more prepared than me!
New Orleans has been on my bucket list since my first reading of Interview with the Vampire when I was a little baby 18 year old. Never has an author so deeply captured my imagination with such a loving description of their favourite city. And then there’s the Harry Connick Jr. of it all. I mean, come on! I had visions of myself sipping coffee on a French Quarter balcony as a marching band passed beneath my window and a vampire whispered from the shadowed corner of my room…
Needless to say, I was ecstatic that my feet would finally walk upon Royal Street where Louis de Pointe du Lac once walked. The only thing left was to grab our passports and load into the car.
Because I am tremendously organized, I knew that our passports were in the pink zippered sleeve of our OFFICIAL RUSNAK TRAVEL BINDER; and because I am totally put together, I knew exactly where that binder was kept; and because I am a mature adult who can keep all the balls in the air, I knew that since we got these passports for our 2015 trip to South Carolina, they would be perfectly okay for a 2024 trip to Louisiana.
I pulled out the binder. I ripped the zipper open with the confidence of a parade-marching baton twirler. I smugly whipped out our passports and flipped them open to our photos—you know, just to see how much we’ve changed in nine years.
And that is when my soul left my body.
I became blindingly hot, and then shivering cold as I tried to compress a near-year of anticipation into the most concentrated dread I have ever experienced.
Date of Expiry: 24 July/Juil 24
Every ball dropped to the floor. They didn’t bounce or roll. They just fell flat. And I died a little bit.
I took my hot red face and my needling angst to the bedroom where my husband was running a brush through his freshly showered hair in the adjoining bathroom. “I’ve made a terrible mistake,” I said.
While I sat among my deflated balls, he became the deft basketball master he’s always been in his heart. He dribbled and dashed and zigged and zagged before he skipped to the line and made a perfect 3-point shot. “They do same day passports in Kitchener,” he said. Swish.
And that’s when my soul came back to my body. Tentatively. Shyly. I stepped into his arms, close to an embarrassing outburst of tears. “How do I even run a business?” I whimpered, which was a stupid thing to say, but in the moment, it’s exactly what I felt. Like, how do I keep things afloat if I can’t handle something as vital as travel paperwork?
But then I did handle the paperwork. I printed off the forms and we signed them. Then we jumped in the car (already gassed up because I PLAN AHEAD!) and took off for Kitchener.
I spent the drive mostly quiet, putting a plan together in the event that we could not, in fact, get same day passports. Because seriously, that sounded like a pipe dream. By the time we arrived, I had decided we would change course and go to Old Quebec. Sure, we’d lose all the money I’d already spent on the hotels, and yes, I wouldn’t get to see the swamp where the body of Lestat de Lioncourt was disposed of, but I was going to get a holiday, darn it, passport be damned!
I’m happy to report that my worries were for naught. The fine folks at the Kitchener Service Canada Centre were, in fact, there to serve. Not once did they shame me for my dropped balls. Instead, they seemed to adopt the generous attitude of The Office’s Andy Bernard who once said that “Ball dropping can be beautiful... for example when it turns an awkward soprano, into a rich, full tenor.”
Yes, the ordeal put us (only!) six hours behind schedule, and yes, I was humiliated by having to present my camo-clad-onesied-self to the downtown streets (where we killed time as we waited for everything to process), and yes, I am also wearing said onesie in the passport photo we had taken at Shopper’s Drugmart on the way to Service Canada, this fashion faux pas forever engraved upon future trips—or at least for the next ten years.
Actual text I sent my sister:
Fri, Oct 11 at 2:16 PM - In case you need something to laugh at, I realized this morning that our passports were expired and we have been in Kitchener waiting on a rush delivery of new ones… and the icing on the cake is that I am dressed for travelling so I’m walking the streets of Kitchener-Waterloo in a camo onesie.Her response:
2:24 PM: Bahahaha!And so, humbled, tired, embarrassed, and eternally grateful for the man who rolled with it and stopped me from turning into a blubbery mess, we finally crossed the border at 7:11 PM—behind schedule, but not broken (save for the massive bank account assault that two rushed passports is!), rolling into our Cincinnati hotel for our first planned stop, and indulging in some midnight Waffle House, an experience that one Instagram follower called “very Ohio.”
As we drove, I slowly allowed myself to inflate all those dropped balls; I welcomed back my confidence; I decided to mark this as a funny thing that happened and not let it stain the rest of the trip.
And it didn’t. We had a wonderful time. I juggled and bounced and, even though I’ve never been good at basketball, I executed the most gorgeous layup of a swamp tour.
The passport debacle was one little brick in my Lego tower of awesomeness that didn’t fit. But it’s okay. I never claimed to be an architect. What I do pride myself on is trusting my co-captain and working together to swap a red brick for a blue one. The end result just adds to the colour of an amazing adventure. Flexibility and adaptability is key. And good footwear. Trust me. If you’re going to be navigating the streets of New Orleans (or the landscape of a carpet covered in Lego) invest in some sneakers!
If you take nothing else from this silly little oversight, maybe just take a pause on your day and check your own passport. You’ll save yourself hours of worry and hundreds of dollars in additional fees that would be much better spent on Bourbon Street or Frenchman Street or in the little bistro with the incredible beignets.
I would definitely do this trip again; but I can assure you of one thing… I will most certainly check all our paperwork long before any other planning happens, and I hope you do too!
