I go to have passport photos taken.

I'm wearing my favourite blue shirt. That's the one I travel in most. Blue jeans too, I'm all decked out in blue. Even my hat. Blue guy on the town!

At the photo shop, I verify the dimensions with the guy beforehand, explaining that it is for a Canadian passport. "Five by seven centimeters– the head between 3.1 and 3.6 centimeters top to bottom." I show him the regulations from the passport application.

The guy looks at the printout, for a while. It is in millimeters, I said it in centimeters. This causes him more confusion than I expected, but he deals with this every day, and so eventually figures it out. Putting down the printout, he takes me to the back, sits me down, fixes my blue collar, and then takes a couple of photos.

He then goes to his computer, pulls up the photos, and starts to fix the dimensions.

"Please don't edit it." I say, "The last lady removed my mole."

I'm not sure if his look is: "Yeah, I know." or, "How does a foreigner know the word edit?" Because I edit the department's journal. Or maybe editing photos and editing papers are different words in Korean and the look was "What the hell is this foreigner taking about?"

Anyway, he is only worried about dimensions.

He pulls the sheet with the regulations over and studies it with reassuring diligence.

He pops a 5x7 box up on the computer screen and frames my head with it.

Looks pretty good, I think.

He fiddles and fiddles the box, micro shifts and micro zooms of the photo. He keeps referring back to the regulations I gave him.

The regulations have an outline of a head and shoulders centred in a 5x7 box. There are two circles, one fitting the 3.1 centimeters, one fitting the 3.6.

He is having trouble fitting my head into the 3.1.

"You don't have any hair," he says, "So we have to get it to 3.1." He fingers the gap between the two circles on the regulation printout. "This bit is where the hair goes."

"I don't think the hair matters." I say. "Some people have round heads, like a ball. Like you do," I explain. "My head is like a grape. You can use the 3.6 centimeters."

"My head is like a grape." he says. He reaches under his desk and pulls out a tupperware container. Opening it up, he pulls out a round grape.

"That's a Muscat." I explain, "They are round. My head is like the seedless green grapes from California." He doesn't seem to get it. "Like an egg." That does it.

I knew the word for oval when I was teaching Calculus, but I forget it now.

He pops the grape into his mouth and smiles a beatific smile.

"Have you seen those monkey finger grapes?" he asks.

I don't know what he actually called them, but he gestured to his fingers when he was asking, so I know what he was talking about.

"They're delicious!" I say. "But my wife doesn't like them. They creep her out."

"Exactly!" he says. "They are delicious!"

"But the photo should be between Muscat and table grape," I remind him of his task. There are other customers waiting by now.

When I get home with the photos, and finally give them a close look, as I am preparing to send in my passport application, I notice that I have a big spot of red sauce on my lip. It's from the Bahn-Mi I had just before going to get my picture taken.

Now whenever I travel, I am going to have to put sauce on my lip before I go through customs.