It's getting to the point where we'll have to start putting posters up on lamp posts asking people to check their sheds and garages. Possibly the world is bigger than the internet had led us to believe. Damnit, those cryptozoologists might be right. I was once chased by a Jersey Devil. Or I might have been drunk and it could have been a raccoon.
Years ago, my identity was stolen by svelte guy who continued to travel under my name and with my passport. That chap was rightly and regularly apprehended and forced to wait with the irregularly documented foreigners in the white room of shame. I figure I'm going to get the same shit when I check in for the afterlife. Is this you? Are you sure? I'm very sure. Hurry up with the damnation and hellfire, I have marshmallows to toast.
I eventually had to get a new passport.
Anyway, it was a good test of who did and didn't check the picture:
Americans: usually yes, line-up for the Git-mo express over there, sir
French: they never get past my name, which isn't Harry
Germans: long suspicious looks as they tried to imagine what a man would look like if he wasn't mostly bratwurst
Brits: usually ended up with three people looking at passport, then me, then passport, then me.
Africa, Middle-East, Far-East: no, no, no, probably because us whiteys all look the same to them (actually, psychologically, that's probably true)
Israel: surprisingly not, probably too busy doing background checks on my grandparents and surveilling my cats
Canada: they thought I had cancer, then was Michael Stipe. Or possibly Moby. All very sensitively dealt with.
The great thing about the internet is that lots of people who ordinarily would struggle to build a paper plane are suddenly experts on the real thing. I know absolutely nothing about airplanes. I think magic keeps them in the air.