Sandbag Passport - Blog 98
Once upon a time, in a dusty corner of a gym, there lived a 25 lb sandbag named Sandy. Sandy had spent years being tossed around, punched, and dropped by sweaty gym-goers, but one day, it overheard a group of travelers talking about their adventures abroad. Inspired, Sandy decided it was time to see the world too.
Step one: get a passport.
Sandy rolled itself down to the local passport office, leaving a faint trail of sand behind. The clerk, a stern woman named Marjorie, looked up from her desk and blinked. “Can I help you?” she asked, peering over her glasses at the lumpy, burlap figure.
“Yes!” Sandy rasped, its voice a little gritty from disuse. “I need a passport. And a photo.”
Marjorie raised an eyebrow. “You’re… a sandbag.”
“An aspiring globetrotter,” Sandy corrected, puffing out its seams proudly. “I’ve got places to be—Paris, Tokyo, maybe a beach in Bali where I can blend in with the locals.”
Marjorie sighed but handed Sandy the forms. “Fine. You’ll need a photo. Booth’s over there.”
Sandy wobbled over to the passport photo booth, its burlap edges scraping the floor. The booth was tiny, with a stool clearly designed for humans. Sandy tried to hoist itself up, but it flopped back down with a thud, spilling a little sand. “This is harder than a kettlebell swing,” it muttered.
After several failed attempts, Sandy managed to wedge itself onto the stool, balancing precariously. The screen blinked: Look at the camera. No smiling. Sandy stared blankly ahead—smiling wasn’t an option anyway, since it didn’t have a face. The flash went off, and the machine whirred. A moment later, a photo slid out: a slightly blurry image of a lumpy sandbag tilting to one side, with a small pile of sand leaking out at the bottom.
Sandy rolled back to Marjorie and dropped the photo on her desk. She stared at it, then at Sandy. “This won’t do. You’re shedding. They’ll think you’re smuggling contraband.”
“It’s just a little sand!” Sandy protested. “I’m 25 pounds of pure, law-abiding grit!”
Marjorie shook her head. “Try again. And tape yourself up or something.”
Determined, Sandy borrowed some duct tape from a janitor and patched its seams. Back in the booth, it balanced perfectly this time, holding still as the flash popped. The new photo was pristine: a stoic, duct-taped sandbag centered in the frame.
Marjorie inspected it and nodded reluctantly. “Alright, Globetrotter. We’ll process it. Where are you headed first?”
“Somewhere with no TSA pat-downs,” Sandy said. “I don’t want them squeezing me and starting an international incident.”
And so, with a freshly minted passport, Sandy rolled off into the sunset—or at least toward the airport—ready to prove that even a 25 lb sandbag could live a little lighter.
Thank you for reading. Leave a comment.
