T

he idea of having a passport-type photo shoot at midnight for a fancy electronic ID or e-ID doesn’t make much sense to me, and probably never will.

The fact that it did happen, however, was upsetting, while at the same time, still provided me with nonstop giggles.

My family — my mother, sister and myself — recently received invitations to have our e-ID photo shoots at a subdistrict office about 500 meters away from our home.

Doing our best to be good citizens, we’ve prepared to come as early as we could on the D-day, arriving right at 9 a.m. — government offices’ usual working hours.

We had a simple wish — that the process would not be too time-consuming.

Since I had made an appointment with my nearby massage lady, I decided not to miss my one hour of comfort and catch up with my mum and sister afterward.

But when I was about to take a shower before going to meet them, my sister called.

“Don’t bother to come now. We’re at number 788 in the queue. We’re expected to come at around 11:30 p.m. tonight,” she told me, followed by bitter giggles. Wow, huh?

So, I went to work instead. I could not help telling my friends and boss at the office about the quirky agenda that I had to fulfill after work. All of them found it strange, of course, and one even suggested that I answer the invitation on a later occasion.

It is true there would always be extra time in the weeks ahead, but according to the invitation, the chances of receiving better access was unlikely after notice for the first photo shoot had been declined. The second notice and the extra time required in later weeks might come someday, but when?

Never a fan of such bureaucratic processes frequently associated with so many government offices, I simply wanted to get this matter off my plate and out of the way as soon as possible.

So at 10 p.m. that day, I told my mother and sister to return to the subdistrict office, hoping that many people would not turn out and we could jump the line.

We freshened up, put on decent clothes — as required by the invitation — and did our best to rub our sleepy eyes. With the lousy pictures we already have for our passports and driving licenses, which were taken during the daytime, what could we expect from a late night photo session?

Meters away from the subdistrict office, I saw some well-dressed people swiftly moving in and out the place. From a distance, you could hear a man’s voice calling in numbers and family names from the photo shoot area.

Once inside, I was amazed to find out that at 10:30 p.m., the building was far from deserted.

People from all walks of life — both elderly and young women, some cuddling their babies and grandchildren in warm blankets; grandpas and men in their batiks; boys and girls in colorful shirts, and even children in pajamas — all chatted without signs of fatigue.

After waiting for about an hour and half, entertained by the tired shouts of on-duty officers and loud pop music from their digital music players, my family finally had our turn.

I got into one of 10 booths for the photo session and could not decide on the color for the photo backdrop while I waited for another 10 minutes to have my own e-ID process started.

After a man ahead of me finally had his signature recorded in the system, a 20-something-year-old officer with ears plugged by earphones, turned to me and randomly asked for my personal details in a thunderous voice.

I finally then had my photo taken, signed an electronic pad, recorded my fingerprints and had my eyes scanned. I checked my information on the displayed monitor for just a second, and finally, it was done.

I honestly didn’t care how I looked in my future e-ID picture. After the not-so-amusing midnight tale, I badly needed to rest up.

— Niken Prathivi