The One Hour Photo girl tells me not to worry. “Not many people will see it,” she says, reassuringly. “It” being my latest passport picture.
One possible explanation for my blanker than usual look is Ottawa’s mandate that facial expression must be neutral (i.e. not smiling or frowning) with the mouth closed. As if you were laid out on a slab in a morgue after being gunned down in the airport parking lot because your mug matches a composite drawing of the FBI’s TEN MOST WANTED. That sort of neutral.
Not smiling comes naturally to me, but if I want to smile…isn’t it my constitutional right? Besides, a smile around the eyes tends to soften the axe-murderer look.
My photograph will be incorporated into my passport as a digital image, the One Hour Photo girl says, and smiling will make it dodgier for the computer to recognize me. What if I decide to go to Brazil to have my whole face reconstructed so I don’t look anything like my passport photograph? “I wouldn’t volunteer that,” she advises. “It will raise red flags.”
My next challenge is filling out the passport application form. Name and birthdate are not negotiable, but after that, the questions become open to interpretation. I know better than to write “hardly ever/husband deceased” in the box beside SEX. EYE COLOUR depends on the weather and how I am dressed.
HAIR COLOUR. What about bald? Is bald a colour? I’m not bald, but this isn’t just about me. Passport Canada is supposed to be sensitive to all Canadians.
The Airline Passenger’s Guerrilla Handbook includes a helpful section on the do’s and don’ts of filling in the “Occupation” area on the form. For example, try to reduce your job to a simple easily understood word. Don’t say “Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing,” say “Teacher”. Don’t under any circumstances use a word like “Journalist” or “Writer.” “It will raise red flags. “
The book suggests that “salesman” is the safest, most innocuous occupation. I consider “salesperson,” then decide against it. My passport photo makes me look like the sort of salesperson you wouldn’t trust to buy anything from, unless it was a book, and I’m not supposed to admit to being a writer.
Speaking of jobs, it’s a wonder no one has launched a Charter Challenge against the Passport Office for discriminating against citizens based on their line of work. Why should a minister of religion, for example, be from “an approved occupational group,” while a nun is not?
Both me and my friend Father Jack, a retired Catholic priest, disapprove of designating approved groups – as if, he said, there weren’t any priests in jail!
If a priest were convicted of a felony, I asked, would he be defrocked and therefore unauthorized to verify my likeness on my photograph? Father Jack said the only reason a priest would be defrocked was if he were to get married. So, my passport guarantor could be a priest who was currently in a federal penitentiary for making a false statement on a passport application? “If ye’d be a bomber ye’d be right on target,” Father Jack said, in that colourful Irish way.
Later on the form I found the disclaimer: the list of acceptable guarantors, which includes pharmacist, dentist, judge and university teacher, is “not a recognition or endorsement by Passport Canada of professional status or superior qualifications.” Well, then, what exactly is it? Why can a gynecologist verify my authenticity, but not my plumber? Why police officer, not a buddy from Orkin Pest Control? And since when has a bank manager been struck from the list? She is the only one likely to know whether I have enough dough to pay for both the trip to Brazil and the reconstructive surgery.
Lastly, there is the DECLARATION. Passport Canada wants you to solemnly declare that you are a Canadian citizen, and, to the “best of your knowledge and belief, all of the statements made in this application are true.” Do they really expect anyone to admit, “Sorry, I can’t declare this because much of what I have written is a lie.” If one were to tell the truth, in this instance, one wouldn’t be issued a passport, would one?
In the end, I called my lawyer, who, when it comes to my profession, is fond of quoting, “Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.” My lawyer was almost certain to be able to guarantee that the statements I had made were at least halfway to being the whole truth.
They say you get the face you deserve at 50. Here’s one thing I can solemnly declare: I did nothing to deserve the face I got stuck with in my latest passport photograph.
