I could write a weekly or even daily column entitled, “Things That Happen Only to Me.” Today, that thing involved getting passport photos. I need two of them to present to the Canadian embassy as part of my application to renew my expiring passport. I imagine thousands of people around the world doing this every day. They go to a photo shop, comb their hair and pose for a photo, and then they walk away a few minutes later with passport photos. If only it were so easy for me.

In my case, I needed a stamp on the back of the photos. It has to be an official stamp with the address of the photo shop that took the picture and it must be dated. The photo shop I went to here in Kuala Lumpur was in an upscale shopping mall, and they had such a stamp precisely for this purpose. There was some trouble with the stamp, but eventually it was done, my photos were stamped and dated, and after paying my 20 ringgit, I left.

A few minutes later, I was sipping a cold drink while listening to podcasts. I decided to look at my new passport photos just to see how much older and how much uglier I’ve become in the years since my last passport photo was taken. To my dismay, the ink from the store’s stamp had bled. The photos were stacked up in a single plastic sleeve like playing cards in a deck, and the ink on the back of one photo had left a big imprint on the front of the next photo. And so on. All but one of the four photos in the pack were ruined. And the fourth one was useless anyway because the stamp itself had been blurred and was unrecognizable.

Luckily, I had not gone all the way back to my guest house. I was still in the shopping mall, and it was an easy matter to walk back to the photo shop and show them what had happened. I did not get the response I was expecting – the apology, the embarrassment, and the offer to replace them at no cost. Instead I got a rather blank look from the clerks as if they were saying, “What do you expect us to do about it?” Then they quizzed me on where I had gone and what I had been doing. I didn’t see how that was relevant at all, but I told them that I’d gone to another store for another errand and then to get a drink. They wanted to know what store I had gone to and what I had done there. I was puzzled, but I didn’t see the harm in answering their questions. My impression was that they were trying to figure out a way to blame the ruined photos on me.

After some negotiating, the clerks grudgingly accepted that their low-quality ink and poor packaging methods might have had something to do with the ruined photos. (In other, more professional places I’ve used in the past, photos with ink stamps were blotted and then placed in individual paper sleeves separate from each other. Here, they just stacked them up and put them all in the same tiny plastic sleeve.) Luckily, they still had my photo on file, and it was a simple matter to print out a new set. For this, they would charge me an additional 8 ringgit. After all, as they pointed out, I still had the four original photos. Sure, they had ink smeared all over them, but they were still photos. No embassy would take them for passports or visa applications, but couldn’t I give them to friends and family?

I didn’t care about the 8 ringgit. I just wanted the photos, and I agreed to the price. You’d think the story would end here, but in terms of “things that happen only to me”, I’m just getting started.

The new photos were carefully stamped and dated. Then they were left exposed on the desk as we blew on them and fanned them to dry the ink. The clerk also gave me extra plastic sleeves so I could pack each photo separately. The trouble was that no matter how long and how hard we blew, the ink remained wet. I ended up picking up the photos and balancing them on my hands as I walked around the store and looked at cameras and earphones and other things I’d like to buy. I occasionally bent down and blew on the photos.

After what seemed like a very long time, I touched one photo with a tentative finger. Surely the ink was dry by now. But nope, it wasn’t. The ink smeared across the back of the photo where I touched it. How long was this going to take? I eventually left the photo shop and walked around the shopping mall, all the while carefully balancing the photos on my hands and blowing on them. I got more than a few strange looks, particularly at the fancy Apple premium reseller store next door.

I made my way all the way around the mall and back to the photo shop, but the ink was still not dry. I decided that more drastic action was necessary. I took off my knapsack and put it on the ground. Then I knelt down and pulled the two big paper receipts I got from the photo shop out of my wallet. My scheme was to fold up these paper receipts in such a way that I could use them as small envelopes for the photos and blot up some of the ink. I did this once and I noted with satisfaction that a perfect copy of the stamp was left on the paper. That had certainly soaked up a lot of the ink. I did it a second time. That used up all of the first receipt’s blank spaces. I then folded up the second receipt and did it twice more. The ink was still bleeding and leaving ink smears everywhere. How much ink was on these photo?

I had run out of receipts, and I needed more paper. I opened my knapsack and pulled out a notebook. I proceeded to tear out pages from the notebook and fold them up into square envelopes. Four more times I did this and the ink stamps were still leaving behind imprints of themselves. It was insane.

I was so intent on my work that I didn’t notice the shopping mall security team until they were right on top of me. There were two of them in full uniform with hands on their guns. And they wanted to know what I was doing. It was understandable. I assume someone in the mall’s security office spotted me acting suspiciously on their monitors. First, I’m wandering around the shopping mall with hands and arms outstretched like I’m balancing imaginary spinning plates and then I’m blowing on my hands. Finally, they see me stop and bend over my knapsack as I’m rummaging around and taking objects out and folding things and arranging things and blowing on things. I’m surprised they didn’t send a SWAT team with a sniper to take me out now that I think about it.

I tried to explain to these two men what I was doing – the whole story about passport photos and wet ink and blotting paper – but it clearly made no sense to them. They simply stared suspiciously at my knapsack and at my notebook and all the scraps of paper. Getting them to understand was a lost cause. I knew the only reasonable course of action open to me was to pack up and leave. I quickly did so, and they watched me carefully as I rode the escalator up and then went back to the subway station. My passport photos were tucked away inside the last paper envelope I had constructed. I could only hope that the ink wasn’t bleeding through too badly and they’d be usable once I got home.

These things only happen to me.

Tags: Malaysia