Administration frustration

With my passport about to expire, I opted to get some exercise in my lunchbreak by walking half a dozen city blocks to the Passport Office for a renewal form. Alas, you can't do ANYTHING there without making a prior appointment by phone. Wasted journey. I filled out the form online when I got home. This required logging in to a government site and submitting a bunch of personal details. Lacking an operational printer, I sent the .PDF to my company account. It didn't make it through the firewall. Sigh. The following night, I forwarded the original e-mail to the same address and – don't ask me why – that was successful. At lunch on day three (that'd be today), I printed the thing, signed and dated it in black, and took it to the post office. They were too busy to do my new photo and directed me to a nearby camera store. Although needing only two pics, I had to have a minimum of six taken, pay $14 for the privilege and wait 15 minutes for them to be ready. The skilled snapper captured me looking sleepy and angry, like a koala that had just been poked with a stick. Returning to the P/O and handing over completed form, old passport, mugshots and driver's licence, I experienced no further problems as a perky lass efficiently processed my paperwork. Except...I had to cough up 208 bloody dollars for the renewal. In the past 36 years, I have visited a total of three foreign countries. But I guess it's always possible that sometime in the next decade I could visit a fourth.