Authors: Robert A. Heinlein
"Hmmph!" said Ticky.
"Hmmph yourself. Air crashes rate headlines simply because they
are
unusual. Take the Quintuplets-they got a lot of newspaper publicity, too. But what do you think your chances are of having quintuplets?"
"You aren't Mr. Dionne," Ticky answered darkly.
"That's beside the point. Don't you believe in statistics?"
Ticky pondered it. "Sure, I believe in statistics. But I've noticed that whenever I personally am a statistic I'm always way out at the end of the curve, instead of being comfortably toward the middle. They've got a plane crash all shined up, waiting for me to come along."
"Sheer solipsism. Paranoia. The Ticky-centric Universe."
"How else?" she answered contentedly and went on with her weeding.
I took a deep breath. "Ticky," I said, "listen to me. Put down that trowel and look at me. I'm going to put it in simple, Ticky-sized words and I want baby to try to understand it. I am going around the world. You are going with me because I need to keep you in sight where I can watch you and keep you out of trouble. We are going to fly."
"No."
"Yes. It's either planes or ships, and ships are a stupid waste of time. When you go by plane, you spend your time
being
there instead of killing days and weeks getting there."
"No."
"Yes. I'll bet your grandmother refused to set foot in one of those horseless carriages. But right now we fly, all the way around the world."
"No."
"Yes, we do. And when the time comes we'll take a rocketship tour to the moon, too."
So I firmly gave in. We ordered tickets for a round-the-world tour on one of the President Line steamships. It was a lovely ship, as the four-color folders showed-swimming pool, ballroom, private baths, movies, deck sports, beef tea in your deck chair in mid morning. By the time I got through studying the deck plans and the itinerary I no longer regretted not going by air. We applied for our passports and Ticky started making out lists.
That is, we applied for our passports after we sent in for certified copies of our birth certificates. Do you happen to know where
your
birth certificate is right at the moment? Or did the personnel office ever give it back to you after you applied for that job with Douglas back in 1942? You think it's with the insurance policies? I'll give you even money that the document you have in mind will turn out to be a New Jersey driver's license, expired. Americans, lucky people, even today need birth certificates only on very rare occasions. Hardly a half century ago they needed them not at all and very few had them. If an American wished to travel abroad, he did not need a birth certificate because he did not require a passport. All that he required was a letter of credit from his bank and leisure. It was literally possible for an American to wake up on Monday morning, decide to go to Europe, and be sailing, sailing over the bounding main on Wednesday.
Nowadays he had better allow three months as a minimum for the red tape. Six months is much easier on the nerves.
First the birth certificate: this takes about two weeks provided everything is clear sailing, that is to say that you know exactly what official to write to, his address and the amount of the fee that you must send. If you do not know, then you may be able to save two or three useless exchanges of letters by sending a money order for five dollars to the clerk of the county you believe you were born in. He will either do it himself and send you your change, or will pass it on to the proper official (in populous counties, such as those of New York City) who will most likely take care of it the following Tuesday if the photostat clerk or the vital statistics clerk is not on vacation.
Or he may send back the entire five dollars with a polite note informing you that "the records in question were destroyed by fire when the courthouse burned down in 1919." This is a penalty move and requires you to go back six squares and start again.
In my case the penalty move came in the form of a letter stating that "vital statistics were not kept in this county in the year named." This produced a scramble to achieve what is called a delayed registry of birth. Luckily I come from a family of pack rats; we were able to dig up a family bible entry, my first grade report card (good marks in arithmetic, poor in music, fair in deportment-none of this modern evading the issue), my cradle roll certificate, and a letter addressed to me by name on the occasion of my third birthday. There was also a lock of hair.
The cradle roll certificate had the wrong year on it, so we threw that out, but the other exhibits, in due and leisurely time, produced from the State of Missouri a document which said that my birth had at last been duly registered at the state capital. I breathed relief; at last I was me. I had attended school, been commissioned in the armed services, held two civil service jobs, married, voted, run for office, drawn a pension, and done all manner of things as a citizen and a flesh-and-blood being through more than four decades, all without having had any legal existence whatsoever. Now at last this little 4x6 slip of paper, issued by a clerk who had never seen me, assured me that I was real and therefore could apply for a passport.
I am not opposed to birth certificates. They are a nuisance only if you do not have one. But I am not impressed by them. There must be thousands (more likely, millions) of persons like myself in this country who managed to get born without benefit of statistics, nor do I find it reasonable to penalize a new-born infant for an omission on the part of government. Contrariwise, a birth certificate as a proof of identity-its only conceivable function-leaves much to be desired, as they are easily obtained illegally. If I were in the spy business and needed a U.S. birth certificate, I would-but why should I make it easy for spies? Especially when they know more about it than I do? I am sure that no Russian spy in this country ever lacked for an American birth certificate if he needed one for his unlawful occasions.
But an honest citizen can be very handicapped by the lack of one at times. If your birth was never registered, better take steps, as I did. If it was and you are serenely aware that you can always send for a copy if you need one, better send for one now; the courthouse might burn down again. Seven to two you won't! You will wait until it is indispensable, as I did.
Eventually we got our birth certificates and applied for our passports, with another short delay for passport photos. Those passport photos, the sort suitable to hang in a post office under a "WANTED FOR FRAUD" notice, are not accidental. The State Department prescribes the lighting and the pose; the public-enemy result is automatic. I cheated a little by smiling when I saw it was about to be taken.
Be sure to get at least a dozen and a half copies; foreign officials have a way of asking for two or more copies unexpectedly. I have no idea what they need them for or what they do with them. Scrapbooks? But failure to produce on demand can be as troublesome as losing your traveler's cheques. Have them. Carry them on your person when crossing international boundaries-a traveler fully fitted out these days to cross such an imaginary line has bulges all over his person like Tweedledee and Tweedledum outfitted for battle, and he looks and feels just as foolish.
In addition to a myriad pieces of stamped paper adding up to several pounds, he will, if he is wise, have at least two cartons of American cigarettes within easy reach and which he is prepared to give away at the drop of a hint. Bribery? No, "Squeeze"-a bribe is paid to get a man to do something he should not do; "squeeze" is something he demands of you for doing something you are legally entitled to have done anyhow, such as stamping your passport or passing your personal luggage. Most officials do not expect squeeze; those who do can make you miss trains, or worse.
While I am in a mood of reminiscent irritation let me state flatly that there is no limit to the variety of bureaucratic buffoonery placed in the way of legitimate travelers today and that it is my solemn opinion that none of it is of any use whatever. None of it is efficient enough to stop spies, smuggling, or illegal immigration. But the proof of the uselessness of any particular item of red tape lies in the fact that each procedure required by the laws of Ruritania will be found to be missing from the red tape of Lower Slobbovia, with no equivalent procedure to replace it. Instead, Lower Slobbovia will have a different silly mess of its own. This one impounds your passport, that one requires you to report to the police, this one so help me wants you to file an
income tax return
for a stay of four days, that one requires that you register your Kodak (but lets you take any pictures at all!), this one wants to know where your grandparents were born before it will let you simply change planes inside their sacred precincts. That one requires a cash deposit to guarantee that you will leave, then requires you to submit a freshman term paper to get it back when you do leave. This one-
But I could go on endlessly. Their name is legion and these steeplechase hazards to travel have in common in their endless variety only that they are all obnoxious and they are all useless. Pardon the irritation-I have been keeping my temper and smiling for the past forty thousand miles and my face is tired.
But after all it's their country, not mine, and if I don't like it, why didn't I stay home? True . . . but not the whole story. All of these countries are advertising in the States, ads paid for by the governments, urging you to come to beautiful Boskonia and spend those Yankee dollars; see any copy of
Holiday
. Many of them maintain government tourist bureaus in the States. Why, if they are so confounded anxious to improve their dollar balance with the "invisible export" of tourism, can't they refrain from treating a visitor like a juvenile delinquent being processed into reform school?
In order to apply for your passport it is necessary to appear in person at a court having jurisdiction and bring with you a witness who has known you for two years. You don't see the judge; you simply make out another one of those usual forms covering everything but your blood type, you pay the clerk a fee, and leave. Ticky and I found it no real trouble, since we live only a few miles from such a court and could ask a neighbor to go down with us. But in the open spaces of this country many people live more than a hundred miles from such a court (one empowered to naturalize foreigners). If you want the passport, you'll make the trip-but it is a far piece to drag a neighbor just to say, "Sure, I know him. And here's my driver's license to show who I am." Who feeds the pigs while he's gone?
Since the so-called appearance before a court is simply to fill out a printed form, swear to it, leave some photos and your birth certificate, plus personal identification by some other person who in turn need be identified only by papers, in what way would this weak procedure be further weakened if it were carried out by a local notary public who actually
does
know you?
I would not question the wisdom of the personal-appearance-cum-witness if the procedure were tight enough to discourage foreign agents from attempting to get American passports. An American passport is a valuable document; the black market price on them in some Asiatic ports is reputed to be from two to three thousand dollars and no doubt they bring more when they are then resold behind the Iron Curtain. But the present method for "identifying" an applicant is laughable as a security measure and is uselessly inconvenient to the honest applicant-and to his neighbor's pigs.
In due course Ticky's passport and mine arrived by registered mail from Washington. She examined hers smugly . . . all but the picture. "It says here," she announced, "that the Secretary of State of the United States of America sends greetings and urges everyone to permit Ticky to pass freely. That's pretty nice of him."
I agreed that it was. "But we can't go anywhere with it yet. Now we have to get visas."
"What use," she wanted to know, "is a visa?"
Visas are of no use, none whatsoever. They are the epitome of functionless red tape, as meaningless as stepping on every crack while walking down a sidewalk. Many countries have abolished them entirely for all or almost all visits; other countries cling to them and make the obtaining of one as complicated and as annoying as removing an impacted wisdom tooth-South Africa and Indonesia, to cite two horrid cases. The endless questionnaires serve no purpose, since the desired answers are obvious and the international crook need only resort to cheerful mendacity. The fees are almost always too small to constitute worthwhile revenue in view of the overhead-often there is no fee; it is red tape for the sweet sake of red tape itself.
Saudi Arabia alone has a sensible visa system-eighty dollars for the visa, which is limited to Mohammedans, a head tax on pilgrims to Mecca, for revenue unashamed. My hat is off to Saudi Arabia, the straight bite and no nonsense about it. All the other countries are merely inconveniencing themselves and annoying the tourists they seek.
We started to get visas, then did a sudden about-face; our deposit had been returned by American President Lines. They thanked us for our interest and informed us that their round-the-world tours were booked solid for two years in the future.
I was ready to sit down on the curbstone and bawl. Ticky was not much more cheerful; she had been shopping for evening dresses to wear in the ballroom of the S.S.
President Monroe
and was all over her earlier lack of enthusiasm. She had carelessly and with assumed modesty informed all our friends that we were about to make a world tour. The idea of announcing publicly that it was all a mistake was unendurable.
She suggested that we go to Pueblo under an assumed name and spend three months reading
National Geographics
, then return home from the other direction. I was halfway sold on it.
But Mrs. Feyock took us in hand. Hertha Feyock is a cheerful little person who is the "World" part of the World-Wide Travel Agency in Colorado Springs. She speaks several languages, knows exactly how much to tip a Paris concierge, and has been to many of the places she deals in. "Don't you vorry," she said. "I'll find you a ship. There are some lovely Dutch ships running from South America."