Originally published by The Clifton Courier, November 24, 2021

I am now in possession of my own birth certificate. 

For anyone who isn’t keeping up with every detail of my life (that’s a weird choice to make, but that’s your decision I suppose…) there was a time when I was unaware of where my birth certificate was. 

And for quite a while there, I was unaware that I was unaware of where it was. It was only when I was on the phone to my friend who was looking for her own birth certificate that I realised I didn’t know where mine was. 

I assumed it was somewhere safe, but where exactly that safe somewhere was had completely eluded me. 

Thankfully, after shamelessly abusing of this column for personal reasons, I was able to ascertain that it was at my parents’ house and over the weekend I was given custody of the document that proves I was born.

But now I don’t know what to do with it. 

Because it’s now up to me to keep it safe, and that’s a big responsibility. 

If I can’t find it after this, I’ll be the only one to blame. No one else will be able to shed any light on where it could be. I won’t be able to put out a public callout to Mum asking where it is. 

I’ve got to put it in a place that’s easy to find but out of the way so robbers can’t use it to steal my identity but also quick to grab in case I need to evacuate in a hurry but also a place where it won’t get covered in honey. 

And that’s a tricky thing to do. 

The first thing I did when I got home was stick it to my fridge. 

The fridge door is a place where you keep important reminders like shopping lists or things you’re proud of, like paintings you did at preschool. I mean, my Hungry Jacks Crew Member of the Month certificate from 2010 is still on my parents’ fridge door so I feel like it’s a place with a certain esteem. And like a shopping list, my birth certificate is an important reminder that I was born and even though I didn’t have much to do with it, I guess I’m proud of being born. 

But I know the fridge door is just a temporary location.

It definitely ticks easy-to-find and quick-to-grab boxes, but given it’s in an envelop that says “Dannielle’s birth certificate” it’s not very well hidden from robbers. I don’t really know what a robber would do if burdened with my identity, but I wouldn’t like to find out.  And while I could absolutely prevent any thievery by crossing out “Dannielle’s birth certificate” and writing “nothing important in here, I honestly wouldn’t bother looking in this envelope when there’s all these cool horse statues in the house you could be stealing – but also please do not steal those, if you wouldn’t mind” there’s a real risk of spillage in a kitchen environment. 

So I’m now trying to figure out where to put it. 

I could put it in that folder I have with all my other important documents. It certainly would be a logical place to put it and, I must admit, it was the first place I looked when I realised I didn’t know where my birth certificate was. But then, it’s too obvious, isn’t it? Like if a robber was coming in to steal my identity, it would be the first place they’d look too. 

So then I thought I could put it up in the manhole to get into the ceiling. But there’s always a risk of ceiling possums getting to it, and I wouldn’t want a possum to either defecate on it or use it to steal my identity – that would be truly chaotic. And while the hassle of having to get a ladder, climb up into the ceiling and ferret around for it is the thing that protects it from the thieving hands of robbers, that’s also the thing what would make it tricky to quickly grab in an emergency evacuation situation. So the ceiling is out too. 

I could put it in the cover of a book on my bookshelf, but then I’d have to remember which book I put it in. And I’d have to make sure it wasn’t a book that  was so good that someone would want to borrow it, but not too boring that I’d donate it to an op shop.

It’s a big decision and one I feel underqualified to make. 

It makes me think that it might be best to just put it back where it used to be. I mean, I was able to locate it eventually. And it was in very good condition – there wasn’t not a single smear of honey on it. Hey Muuuuum… 

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, November 17, 2021

Yeah, look, I wrote this months ago, long before those long queues and long wait times. And I have to say, I had a pretty cruisy experience when renewing my passport. I don’t mean to rub it, but I got my passport back in like two weeks.

I’m currently on hold with the Australian Passport Office. 

I’m attempting to renew my passport as both an act of both optimism and life admin, hopeful that may at some point in the near future, I might be able to use it again (well, as something other than a coaster, anyway). I mean, I’m not saying I wish the rest of the country were a miserable bunch of pessimists too, but I had hoped there’d be less people calling about renewing passports given we’re still living in These Uncertain Times. 

So far, I’ve been on hold for 48 minutes and seven seconds.

And, look, as far as hold music goes, this stuff is fairly nice. It’s kind of mediative music with didgeridoos and clarinets and choral refrains, so I guess I could chalk it up as a bit of a relaxation session… if that relaxation session was also a hostage situation. 

But I haven’t been relaxing this whole time. 

In fact, I’ve actually been able to get quite a few things done while I’ve been on hold thanks to the hands-free magic of ear buds. Here’s how I’ve spent the now 53 minutes and 24 seconds I’ve been on hold so far:

Paid my internet bill: This was something I’d meant to do yesterday, but didn’t get around to it because it required 1.45 minutes of concentration and me to enter a few details into the online form. Clearly, as a pencil-skirt wearing career woman, I had no time for that… until today. 

Paid my phone bill: I don’t think I get monthly statements for this and if I do, I’ve clearly ignored them for much of the year. I can’t remember the last time I was prompted to pay for my telephonic privileges and therefore can’t remember the last time I paid, so I just took a stab in the dark and transferred what I hoped was enough to ensure my lines of communication won’t be cut. 

Hung some washing on the line: I’ve started divvying up my loads according to light and colourful garments. It’s a very exciting development in my life, hey?

Wrote a post card to my sister: I went to an art exhibition like a month ago and bought a postcard of a famous painting featuring a pair of sisters. I have been recently quite slack at keeping up my postal correspondence with this sister, which we like to maintain despite the modern communication methods available to us (well, they’re available if you remember to pay your bills on time…).  I had been planning to send a the postcard with more exciting life updates than “I’m on hold right now” but things have been quite dull in most aspects of my life (except in the laundry, ammiright?!), I’d been meaning to send it for a while and I had nothing else to do with my time. So she’s got a nice underwhelming surprise coming for her in the mail. 

Wrote a note to my other sister: Late in September, I’d bought myself a set of really, really comfy knickers with a matching crop top. I was chuffed with them. I ended up back to that shop a few days later and, noticing it was in the midst of a sale, I decided to snag a cheap set for my sister as a little put-a-smile-on-that-dial mid-week mail surprise. I hadn’t got around to sending them and after so long, I felt like I need to accompany them with a note explaining the delay, so I wrote that while on hold. 

Realised I didn’t have anything to send my other sister in the mail: There’s absolutely nothing to read into that, but any chronic overthinker of a middle child could write a whole column on being casually excluded like that. 

Sent a hasty Facebook message to my ignored sister: I misspelled “you” in my rush to pre-emptively mend things. 

Started writing this column: Some might say I was being very meta, cheekily breaking down the fourth wall with a wink to my readers. Others might say I was seizing the day, taking what life thrusts at me and milking every opportunity out of it. And then there would be some who would say writing about being on hold is scraping the barrel, topic-wise.