to feel like crying after spending 4 and 1/2 hours looking for DH's passport (newbie here, just want to sound off a bit really, please be kind to me)

[cubbie]

I found the damn thing, in one of the first places I looked, obviously not properly!
Going on hol on Saturday with DH and 2 DS, both under 5. Haven't packed a thing, thought I'd get all the paperwork etc sorted first, passports, online check-in etc (which I was able to do cos I had copies of our passports).

Thought it would just be a simple matter of pulling open home office drawer (sounds posh, but everything still gets swallowed up into a black hole, it seems, got huge piles of stuff to file) and retrieving our passports but DH's wasn't there.

Long story short, I found it but feel incredibly stressed and just want to cry actually. (DH did look for a good while but I said I'd find it cos I'm in charge of all the paerwork etc, it's not that he was abdicating responsibility)

I know this isn't really an AIBU, and apologies for being a bold newbie. Have been lurking here for ages and posted a couple of times. I just wanted to vent a bit and this is the only forum I go on regularly.

I need to go and have a shower cos I feel grotty after pulling out drawers and cupboards all over the house, then I am going to have a large glass of wine and very possibly, a good cry! Had about 4 hours sleep last night due to painful shoulder and doesn't look like I will get much sleep tonight either.

I know I must be very disorganised but will someone please say something nice to me, I really am stressed and upset. Thanks and sorry for being a wimp and on the wrong board. Hopefully the late hour will excuse me.

Ignore Custardo and workdrivesme - I'm sure they're one and the same person anyway. You always get the bitter, nasty ones who like to make others seem insignificant and unimportant.

Glad you found the passports, hope you have a great holiday. Where are you off to?

Cubbie, I'm glad you found your passports, hope you can now look forward to your holiday.

Please don't feel you have to justify yourself to mean and jealous people, going on holiday is not a crime.

Before we went on holiday last year, I lost my passport. It was still in my maiden name. About a month before the holiday I thought it was never going to turn up, so had to pay for a replacement and thought I may as well get int done in my married name. So after all the hassle that is filling in passport forms, I went to the holiday company to get my ticket put into my married name, and they had the cheek to charge me £50 for the privelidge. For a ticket that hadn't even been issued!

It turned out to be a very expensive mistake, and last week I found the old passport, in a place I had looked, but it was inside an envelope with other bills because of it being used for a CRB check. DH is now in charge of passports!

I have also missed five days of a holiday to Florida in the past because of a passport that had expired a month before the trip without me noticing. I am not good with passports.

It could be worse. We were due to go to NY in 2003, I think it was. I looked for the passports a couple of days before (we keep them in a certain drawer). I found mine but couldnt' find DH's. Hunted high and low. Ended up missing flight and holidaying in the UK instead. We were really down about it as we'd saved so hard for our holiday. Ended up finding the passport a few days later - it had stuck to the bottom of a diary in the drawer (I hadn't turned over the diary when looking; just popped everything I took out of the drawer in a pile). We were gutted!

Oh fab - loads of irresponsible passport people. I don't feel half so bad.

YANBU and not disorganised. Recent check in conversation went like this

Desk 'how long are you away for'
Me, smelling trouble 'er, why?'
Desk 'your DS passport runs out in 10 days'
Me 'ooh, ONE week'

chocolatehobnobs

That is awful, totally surpasses any of my disasters
of which this was just the latest in a long line (going on our honeymoon, secided to do a car boot sale for extra cash so was washing lots of curtains dc while DH was sitting relaxing in the garden. Realised that I wasn't sure where my passport was, spent frantic few hours till I found it and burst into tears. Didn't do a car boot sale funnily enough. Now if things are frenetic, DH always asks me if I want to do a car boot sale as well!)

You've cheered me up although I'm very sympathetic, can just imagine the stress! I wouldn't trust my DH, at least when I lose something I can get annoyed at myself haha!!

noobynoob

Thank you, I was somewhat taken aback at the nastiness. We are going to Menorca to a lovely villa, not ready to inflict ourselves on hotel dining rooms as yet!

gwendolinescarylacey

The fruit bowl seems like a prefect place to me!!
Thanks so much for replying.

(I loved loved loved all the Mallory Towers books!)

slavetofilofax

Thank you for replying, that's awful, poor you! I have 1 month left on my passport in my previous married name, so I have to use that name when travelling. Always feel a bit funny that DH and our DS have the same name but I my ticket etc is Mrs someone else, makes me feel like a scarlet woman!

I actually did check the validity of my passport as some countries require you to have at least 6 months left. Am just glas I'm getting one more shot out of it, blooming expensive to get a new one. Just realised, will prob need my marriage certificate, and possibly divorce papers (not my fault, I would like to point out but no offence intended to anyone who has chosen to leave/divorce their DH), fun and games trying to find them, no doubt!

I'd like to say I was more organised before i had my DS but that would a lie!

perfect, not prefect!! In Mallory Towers mode there!!

Enjoy your holiday - but don't forget to ask permission here next time!

We've had three passport near disasters:

1. DH asked me to check passports 2 days before our hols. We were both convinced dd1's was due for renewal the following year. Guess what...? Cue a very long drive to Durham (!?) to get an even more than usually extortionate one the day before a very long drive down France.

1. DH lost his passport. I sent him on ahead (we were stopping at MiL's on the way) with children and luggage so I could search the house. He rang me when he got there to say that it was still in the front pocket of one of the cases he had with him from a business trip the previous month. When we got home I had totally forgotten the manic search and thought we'd been burgled

1. DH sent his passport to a visa company for them to do their job. Unfortunately they lost it. With a week to go before he was due to fly. Thankfully this time it was their job to do the long wait and pay the ultra extortionate fee!

Please don't be put off by one or two nasty posters. We're not all llike that. And, you have my total sympathy over the SPD issue. I had it very badly with dcs 3 & 4 (esp 3) and I realise how lucky I am not to still be suffering.

theressomethingaboutmarie

OMG that is absolutely terrible, you poor souls> I am so sorry for you, bad enough losing it but to find it like that must have been so so frustrating.

My friends daughter (polocewoman) lost hers before going onn a family skiing holiday, turned house upside dwon, had to get a new one and pay extra for a different flight. She tore cartilage in her knee while ther and had to get a big operation when she got home. Never found the passport, thinks it somehow got thrown out.

policewoman even (sorry for other typos, trying to reply before DH gets home!)

buttonmoon78

Thanks for replying, your tales of woe really take the biscuit, I had to laugh at you thinking you'd been burgled!!

I've lurked here long enough to know that MNers are generally a nice lot, so was very taken aback, honestly couldn't tell if they were kidding or not.

Cristinadellapizza

Thanks for replying, I don't feel so bad! I also lose all sorts of important things, despite having a filing cabinet with drop-in files. It's the lack of time/inclination to actually do any filing which hinders me.

Bucharest

Thanks for replying, I have a new capital one card here somewhere so I'll find your mastercard once I've found that haha!!

As for finding my DH's stuff, I'm in charge of all the paperwork etc and it was me who had lost it in the first place. He did spend a couple of hours looking but I told him just to go to bed and I'd find it. I'd forgotten that he'd had to go into the bank to verify his identity when I remortgaged and I took all the documents ect from him when he got back so I could file them.

(I say "I", not "we" as I organised it, I try to keep him in the dark re my financial misdemeanours haha! Bit of background to explain why, was previously married and new DH moved in with me but I'd lived on my own for a number of years so I was used to doing all the paperwork. Did it all in my previous marriage, too. I'm a teacher, I like to take over and organise!!)

I didn't put it back in its normal place (DH wouldn't even know where that was!), probably because the boys were clambering over me or something, instead I put it up high in a "safe place" but didn't check aforesaid safe place very carefully to start with!!

The stress we cause ourselves, eh!

Everyone else that I haven't replied to individually

Am sorry, I just don't have time now but thanks for replying and making a newbie feel welcome.

I do feel better that it's not just me who has passport etc disasters though I am full of sympathy for the stress etc that you all experienced.

Apologies for the typos, in a hurry and boys distracting me so I haven't checked each post, annoying.

Got to go and get boys' dinner now, thanks again.

Can't remember who it was, sorry if that sounds rude, but I HAVEN'T packed a thing!!!

The thought of it is bringing me out in a cold sweat.

The flight is at 7am, I will be putting the boys to bed in their airport outfits so they can just get straight in the taxi. I have a feeling that I won't see a great deal of my bed that night!

You need

Clearly.

You also sound like you hate packing almost as much as me - I would definitely be getting my DH to do it, no matter who was 'in charge' of passports, after this!

I lost my handbag today, complete with two new pairs of glasses just collected from opticians.
I had got to the almost crying and wanting to smack myself in the face for being so stupid as I was convinced I had left it on the road beside my car whilst unloading the baby.
It was in the loo.

Also once missed a flight as I thought it was the next day. When I should have been checking in I was drinking wine and watching Anaconda.

i did a similar thing, thought I'd lost my purse with all my credit cards in it just before we went on holiday a couple of years ago, frantically trying to cancel my cards (couldn't find any of the details I needed, all relevant documents had been sucked into a black hole) whilst on way to get my hair done.

Phoned the local police stations etc, found the purse down the side in DH's car where I must've dropped it the night before when I'd collected my neighbour from the airport at 2am. I had phoned dh at work to ask him to check the car, he didn't see the purse.

Got to the hairdressers and just burst into tears. I was left with only one usable card and couldn't get any euros from the post office as I'd cancelled the card I'd ordered them with. That reminds me, haven't got any euros yet!!!!!!!!!!!!

AM GOING TO BED, AM EXHAUSTED. wILL JUST HAVE TO PACK tomorrow. Sorry, hit the caps lock by accident!