::A Geek in Korea::

Last week I noticed that I didn’t have my ATM card in my wallet anymore. Odd, since I had kept this particular card for several YEARS, often going a year or more without using it. It was always there just in case I needed it. I talked to my wife, who knew she hadn’t moved it for whatever reason. Uh oh, time to cancel the card.

While we were skipping around to different banks to find out loan rates for the house, I decided this would be the perfect time to make a new ATM/Debt card. Since I never use my card to actually withdrawl cash, if I actually needed to purchase something I didn’t have money for, an actual card to spend from would be better. Whenever foreigners deal with banks, they bring their foreigner card, as well as their passport. I grabbed these two legal necessities and headed out the door. After we got the needed info and signed for the card, we headed to Emart. I picked up my WIFI router. We dropped into a realtor for some paperwork, then headed home.

Last night, we got an automated response about my debt card. They needed my passport number. Odd, since we had BROUGHT my passport with us to the bank. My wife asked, “So, where is that passport. We need the number.

“Where is the passport? I thought YOU had it,” was my reply.

Uh oh.

Yesterday night we spend an hour or two tearing the apartment to pieces. We checked all the newly laundered clothes. No, it wasn’t in the wash. I checked every coat, bag, and book in my computer room. No where. My wife checked our legal documents drawer where all the paperwork is usually kept. Nothing. We found HER passport, and all HER documents, but mine was still nowhere to be seen. I found a copy of the passport info I kept for emergencies, but not the real thing.

We retraced our steps and hoped for a miracle. We headed back to the bank. They took down the number from our copy of the passport and told us that if they had found the real passport, they would have called us. No luck. Next we went to Emart. There was a list of all the items they found each day at the information desk. They find a LOT of stuff in that store, but not my passport. The trip to the real estate agent was fruitless, but extra awkward because we had signed a contract with the real estate agent across the hall, meaning they had lost out on the commission. No wonder they hadn’t looked very hard.

The bad timing of everything freaked me out more than anything. Losing a bank card AND a passport in the same week? Was I getting senile? Was I being robbed by a very patient identity thief? What the heck was going on?

We returned to the house and proceeded to tear it apart again. We have a small house, so looking involved checking the places we looked at before. We went through the computer room, and started looking back through documents. My wife got in touch with the bank and started to move funds from my account over to hers just in case of fraud resulting from my missing document.

We hadn’t found anything, and I was already looking at how hard it would be to replace the passport. As long as we had a copy of the information provided on the passport, as well as a police report, made an interview, paid a large fee, had all the places I had visited outside of Korea, and made two trips to Seoul, I could probably have a new passport in two weeks. Gee, it’s almost TOO easy! I was resigned to having to call the cops and start on this process rolling. Once we reported it missing, we couldn’t stop until we had a new passport, as it rendered the old document invalid.

I picked up a pile of documents we had sorted through to put them away. Wherever the passport was, it wasn’t in the house…then something plopped on the floor from the pile of documents. I thought it was just my wife’s passport, till I noticed it was blue. ASSA! I FOUND IT!

There was a huge sigh of relief, then an angry scowl from my wife. “NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.”

No kidding.