Okay, so here’s the gist of my story: I lost my passport. I used it as ID to cash a check several weeks back (since my license expired & I haven’t yet re-newed it.). Being in a hurry that day, I simply shoved it into my bag and forgot about it. This past weekend, I emptied out my bag and realized it wasn’t there. After scouring every place I could imagine that I might have absent-mindedly left it, I had to admit to myself that it was simply gone.
A bit later, I recalled a moment that occurred one day during my usual commute to work: While exiting the no. 6 train at Union Square amid a huge bustling crowd of folks, I had the sensation that I had dropped something. I looked at the floor around me, and could see nothing. There were too many people coming & going at the moment for me to do a serious inspection anyway, and at the time I didn’t think that anything I might have in my backpack was irreplaceable. Of course, in hindsight, I realized that that may very well have been my passport!
Some time had passed since that day, so as I walked up to the police precinct station within Union Square, I had very little hope of actually recovering the damn thing, but…of course there’s always the chance.
I approached a Transit Police Officer, who (in my currently uncharitably bitter estimation) I shall refer to hereafter as the “Wannabe Detective Logan from Law & Order” Officer. Our exchange went like this:
Me: I realize this is a long shot, but the other day I realized my passport was missing and I think I may have dropped it on the 6 train platform. Nobody happened to turn it in, did they?
Wannabe Det. Logan: This sounds like a scam to get a free passport to get back to where-ever you’re from!!!
Me: (after a stunned pause) Huh???
Wannabe Det. Logan: (exasperated grunt) All right, so you say you lost it the other day?
Me: Well I realized it was missing the other day, but actually I think I lost it a we–
Wannabe Det. Logan: Oh so now you’re changing your story? All of a sudden you go from losing it YESTERDAY to A FEW WEEKS AGO! Which is it?
Me: No, I realized it was missing over the weekend, I think that I might have dropped it—
Wannabe Det. Logan: All of a sudden you’re changing your story! What kind of a scam are you trying to pull?
Me: Look–
Wannabe Det. Logan: Where is it from? Your passport?
Me: Well, here. I’m from here, I live in the city.
Wannabe Det. Logan: (after glaring at me) Where did you lose it?
Me: I realized it was missing when I was at my apartment, but I think I might have dropped it on the 6 train platform.
Wannabe Det. Logan: Now it’s lost at your apartment! You keep changing your story.
I’ll skip the rest which is pretty much more of the same snappy banter, but the exchange carries on for about ten minutes. I might add that the Wannabe Det. Logan has a smug, gloating, snickering grin on his face all this time - he was clearly enjoying grilling me. However, our exchange came to an end when another officer (who, in my uncharitably bitter estimation of Wannabe Det. Logan, I shall refer to as “the REAL Police Officer” - distinguishable from the Transit cop by his blue shirt) stepped in.
REAL Police Officer: Actually, all missing passports have to be reported at a Precinct house. We can’t file a report on it here - it’s due to Homeland Security regulations. Just go to your local precinct house and file a report.
WTF???
I realize it was something of a pipe dream to think some good Samiritan had seen my passport, and handed it over to the proper authorities. All I wanted to know was if someone had turned in a passport in. Instead, Mr. Wannabe Det. Logan Transit Cop right off the bat accuses me of being a scam artist, then accuses me of changing my story before I’d even told him my story, and wastes ten minutes grilling me in the a condescendingly manner, and …I have to find out from somebody else that he has NO AUTHORITY over the matter at hand. Who knows how much longer that fucker would have made me jump through hoops for him before letting me know there’s nothing he could have done anyway?
Let me just say that I do have great respect for Police Officers in general. I wouldn’t even mind having to go through some red tape over this incident, because in this day & age of terrorist insurgents sneaking into the country, a missing passport might actually be a big deal. But when some jerk who’s just sitting on his ass decides that he wants to play Big Bad Law Man, and basically toys with me just so he can puff himself up - I take exception. I felt like telling him off, and spitting out at him that he’s just a TRANSIT cop, not a REAL cop. But, I (probably wisely) held my tongue.