My passport expired yesterday.

It doesn't sound like that big of a deal, and the reality is— I should be relieved.  The little blue book that gets me in and out of the country looks more like a home-ec project than proof of my citizenship.

That dumb thing has gotten me detained in my own country, detained in other countries, denied entry visa, removed from various forms of transportation and possibly added to the FBI watch list.

I don't know for sure.

Everyone knows traveling during the holidays can be horrendous. There are three basic rules to holiday travel:

1- Leave early
2- Pack light
3- Be nice to the airline employees (and TSA agents as well)

With all of our planning and packing and leaving early, we still managed to land ourselves in the worst case scenario of holiday travel.

Merry Christmas. We missed our flight.