..that I had a time machine. There are so many things that I could have done to undo whatever happened. Unfortunately, things don’t work that way. Life, as I see it, is not about never failing. It is about rising  everytime you fail, higher than before.

This past week had been chaotic to say the least and every single person (from my bank manager to my friends) who I have spoken to, seem somewhat surprised as to how well I am handling the situation and the sudden change in plans. Here is what I learned -

I was one of those guys who grew up watching ‘Cops’ and ‘World’s Wildest Police Videos’ and the likes. I still get a weird feeling everytime a squad car passes by, with it’s lights flashing and the sirens blaring and it brings back memories from all the TV shows. Well, here’s the truth, stuff like that doesn’t happen unless someone just got shot or someone’s life is in danger. I imagined a couple of squad cars to arrive as soon as we contacted 911 and start scouting the area for possible suspects and find our bags in an hour with a happy ending.

In real life, 911 dispatch gave us a local phone number to call and contact the local police. When we called the local number and told them what happened, they transferred us to a TRU (telephone reporting unit) where I had to ‘leave a message’ for the cops to call me back. Finally, about an hour and a half later and 3 phone calls and numerous messages , I convinced dispatch to send us a ‘street unit’ since we weren’t from Portland and had to go back to Seattle. The street unit arrived 10 minutes later, noted down what we lost and asked us what the thief could possibly do with the documents(I bet he had no clue what an I-20 document or H1B, F1 visas were). He gave us a case number and was on his way.

I wish he had told us that thieves don’t hold on to bags for long. That they rummage through it, and dump it in a garbage can nearby. This sounds like common sense now, but my brother and I were too occupied with other things in our head and I wish the cop had told us this. For what it was worth, we could have just driven around for an hour or two looking for the bags in the garbage cans nearby. Maybe we would have found the bags with the passports, maybe we could have still had our vacation, maybe we could have still gone back home and spent time with family, maybe just maybe….

I’ve also watched a lot of movies where the thief has a suddent change of heart and gives back everything with an apology and a happy ending. Yea, that doesn’t happen in real life either. My best guess is that our passports are all either in a garbage dump somewhere outside of Portland or have been traded in the black market. Good news though is that the DHS (Homeland Security) has our pictures and finger prints in their database. Someone will get a good ass kicking when they try to use our passports. Our bank accounts been changed, and fraud alerts setup, so there is nothing that can be done in there either.

Our hotel bookings have been canceled and refunded (Expedia was good with this). Our flight tickets are still in the limbo. They want to give us $3000 in credit for flight tickets that we can use in the future and I’m still fighting.

All our bank accounts, credit cards have been cancelled and reopened with new numbers, fraud alerts setup on our SSN and credit histories and mostly secured.

I spoke to the International Student Office at the UW and they informed me that my student visa would be cancelled. Once I get my new passport, I have the option of either sticking it out in the States until I graduate or if I decide to go out of the country, I will have to re-apply for the student visa as a fresh candidate. They gave no guarantee that I would be issued a visa again. Although this seems like the most retarded policy ever, one of my friend’s friend had her visa cancelled under similar circumstances and had the visa issued in no time. The question is whether I want to risk going out and never coming back. The good news though is that I can take the interview in Vancouver, Canada which is a 3 hour drive from Seattle.

I think I’ve done enough talking and thinking/analysis about this issue. Time to move on to better things in life. In other news, summer is almost done in Seattle (if this counts as one). The rain is here to stay.

Tags: cops, expedia, F-1, flights, garbage, H1B, hotels, I-20, international, passport, portland, rain, seattle, stolen, student, summer, UW, vancouver, visa