Yup - in a matter of hours, not even a day. Asked wife if she knew where passports were a week before my trip to Japan. She said "yes, I just straightened everything up and found them." Great, I thought. One day before, I looked where she told me to find them, and all I found were the old, expired passports. Her face turned white as she said "that means I threw the new ones away."

So, I made a few calls and had an 8:00 am appointment at the passport office in Manhattan, got what I needed, and had the wife drop me off at JFK in time for my 1:30 pm flight to NRT.

Not the way to begin a trip, but it all worked out.