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When Lee and I first got engaged and started telling everyone we knew -- and many we didn't -- the story of how we met and fell in love, several people suggested that our story would make a really good movie. I agree, and I'll get to work on that book just now; but leave it to the government to provide us with an essential element of any great movie . . . the suspense.

Now here's our tax dollars at work -- no, actually, not working. The US Passport Agency can't afford to pay enough people to answer the phones, so they've contracted the telephone answering duties out to a private company. I actually had to pay to talk to someone! And it wasn't very helpful, either (although she was very nice). When I talked to the woman (for $5.50), she told me to do what it said in the letter they sent me: fill out the form and return it with copies of 3 documents from the list they sent me and they'd get my passport processed. She said that was all I could do and I should send it overnight, "Attention: Suspense Department." I repeated it back to her and she said, "Suspense, like a suspense movie." I was so focused on the passport difficulties that I didn't even get the joke until after I was off the phone. Suspense. That's a good one.

I'm sure that this will be an amusingly heartwarming love story in the end, but it's not very funny right now, because I've got a plane to catch and it would cost us real money to delay our plans now. So Dianne helped me fill out the "additional information" form the passport people wanted. They wanted to know names, addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and shoe sizes of everyone in my family and all my friends and acquaintances. They also wanted to know everyplace I've ever lived and every place I've ever worked. I brought in all of my important documents and Dianne went through them with me and made copies and sent them along with the "additional information" form to the passport office via Federal Express, priority overnight. Dianne tracked the package and saw that the documents were delivered Tuesday morning. So we waited, checked the tracking, waited, checked the tracking, waited . . . Thursday, still no sign of the return package. Dianne was great. All I could do was focus on my work and pray that they got my passport processed and out to me so that I'd get it Friday. She kept trying to find a phone number for the local Passport Office and she finally called someone who probably risked their job by giving her this forbidden number. Dianne actually managed to talk to someone who found my file and connected her with a "specialist." He assured her that he would get it processed by 11:30 Friday, and I could pick it up before 3:30 Friday afternoon, when the office closed for the weekend.

The way things were going, I had my doubts; but Butch took me downtown at lunch time and we went up to the 13th floor of One Canal Place and, after Butch de-metalled himself, he still set off the metal detector with his steel toed boots; and they actually had my passport there, as promised!

You'll have to wait for a while -- in great suspense, I'm sure -- to read about how the trip, the wedding, the honeymoon and the return trip goes, because I'll be out of the country for the next 2 weeks. Thanks to Dianne for all the help, we couldn't have done this without you, to Audy for the time off, and to Butch and Gerrie for all of your support.

And speaking of Butch, it's time to stick this column up on the web and turn out the lights, Because my ride to the airport is here. I'm getting married, you know.