I live about a 100 meters from the northern police headquarters in Stockholm. This is very useful when you need to do certain things, such as renew your passport. I did this today. The conversation with the passport clerk went something like this:
- “Hi, I’d like to renew my passport.”
- “Do you have identification?”
- “Absolutely!”
*gives ID from wallet*
- “Sir, this ID is invalid.”
- “wat”
- “It was invalidated almost exactly three years ago when you reported it and your wallet missing.”
- “Ehehe, well, yeah, that was solved. I guess I never fixed the ID after that.”
- “Do you have any other valid forms of identification?”
- “No.”
- “Do you live with someone?”
- “Yes I do!”
- “Are you registered as living together?”
- “…no.”
- “Then you need to bring a member of your direct family here to identify you.”
- “But they live really far away.”
- “Okay. Can your employer come and identify you?”
- “Yes! Awesome! I think that can be done!”
- “Have you been working there for more than six months?”
- “…no. :(”
By now, I feel how my upcoming trip is fading away in front of my eyes.
- “Is there anything else I can do? I live with my cousin, can he identify me?”
- “Are you registered as living at the same place?”
- “…haha, no. He has yet to do his addressändring, that little shit.”
- “I can take a look in the database and see if I can trace your relation.”
He does after some bumps, and he finally finds my cousin. He says that he can do a indeitification of me if he can come by the station. Luckily, he was at home today, so I call him over and he gets to verify and identify that I am who I say that I am.
If I was not living so close to the station, this might have gone pretty differently. But for now, I am on my way of getting a new passport and, obviously, a new ID.
I can’t really shake the feeling that I was broken in some abstract reason for the past three years. Oh well. :>