More off-topic venting about my son: He had mentioned MONTHS before that he wanted to take a trip to Europe. I told him he should apply for his passport.
He did nothing.
I told him “go to the UPS store and get passport photos taken”. He did that. And nothing else.
It gets to be a month before he wants to travel. “Have you asked for the time off work???”. “Uh, no.” “THEN DO THAT!”. He did.
A week before he wanted to travel, I reminded him “You NEED TO GET THAT PASSPORT”. He called to make an appointment - this was on a Tuesday. He came back to me and said “I need to have an airline ticket booked”.
I said “So book one!” (note: aside from the cost, this wasn’t that huge a deal, as he could have flown into pretty much any city in Europe, as his plans were not set in stone).
On the Wednesday, I asked if he’d booked his ticket. He said “Um, there was some kind of problem with my credit card”. I said “THEN USE YOUR DEBIT CARD”.
By Thursday, he had done so. And he got his appointment at the passport agency’s open house on the Saturday. That day, I did my only “hands-on” assistance: I drove him downtown to get there (he could have taken Metro, but that doesn’t run as frequently on weekends) and while he was there I went to a currency exchange and got him some Euros to put aside for emergencies.
Mission accomplished; he had to go back on the Monday to pick up the passport. I dropped him off at the airport Tuesday, and off he went. Planning and travel are chronicled here. He actually did fine, once he was there, even when he had trouble booking some planned train trips - he handled all the obstacles quite well.