I’m planning a trip overseas later this month. And by “overseas,” I mean, “Not overseas, but to Canada.”

A war was narrowly averted.

I went fishing around for my passport. I usually keep it in a very specific part of the house [the “Passport Room”]. I opened the drawer and found the blue booklet. I opened it to find it had expired in 2012.

I shared this information with several coworkers the following morning.

Back in the day, I went to Mexico several times when I was working with the network [and once last year, just to hang out]. All of those trips would have been after 2012.

“Is it weird they didn’t they notice my passport was out of date?” I asked them.

“You probably caused an international incident,” one of our anchors replied, backing away.

I  filled out the necessary documents and went to the passport office in Fort Worth, explaining the situation to the woman behind the counter.

“Did I cause an international incident?”

“No,” she replied.

Turns out, I had already replaced my passport.

She could tell because of the holes. When you get a new passport, she said they punch holes in the old one to make it invalid.

She said something to the effect of, “If they let you cross with that passport, we really do have a crisis at the border.”

“I see. In that case, it’s possible I have no idea where my current passport is,” I explained.

She could not have been more understanding, saying this sort of thing happens all the time. Scour the house, and if you don’t find it by Monday, come back, they’ll cancel the one that mysteriously disappeared and you’ll still have enough time to get a new one printed before your trip.

I started to fret. Someone was crossing the border, posing as Scaia. I looked back at my 2002 passport.

The State Department’s guidelines are clear: Your picture should have a “neutral facial expression.”

This is not a neutral facial expression. This is young Scaia yelling at 2002 Secretary of State Colin Powell, “Look how much hair I have!”

I went to get new pictures taken, this time, with the neutral facial expression.

I wandered into a drug store for the picture. I feel like my current glasses are more stylish, but the State Department is also clear that glasses are no longer allowed.

So I’ve gone from the raucous student pictured above to an old man.

“Yeah, I’ve still got some hair. And yeah, some of it’s out of place, Current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Whaddya want me to do? Comb it?!”

I started retracing my steps. The lady at the passport office said there’d be no paper trail until I came back, so the mysterious passport would still work if I found it.

I had been in Mexico briefly in 2018. If I was just going across the border for a day or two, I’d just shove my passport into my backpack.

I started looking through the backpack. The backpack I carry every day, everywhere I go. When I go out on a story, I lug the backpack around with me because it has my microphone and laptop.

My passport was inside. It had been nestled against me for the past year.

In my defense, I was keeping it securely in a pocket that zipped.

And now I’m creating my own paper trail by documenting this entire episode.