Those of you who leave their country from time to time know, how important a passport is. As Mark travels quite a lot, he needs his passport most likely more often in one year, than half of us during their whole life.
Unfortunately, Mark's relationship to his passport is a rather 'loose' one.

Many of us heard this story at Ring*Con 2003 for the first time, told by Mark (somewhat reluctantly) and Craig (with distinctly malicious pleasure - and justly so!) :
On their way from New Zealand to Bonn, Germany where Ring*Con took place, Mark and Craig had a short stop-over at Los Angeles. Short, but for Mark long enough to manage losing his passport. This naturally led to some trouble when they crossed the next border (to Canada), and they found themselves kind of stranded.
Well, what's an embassy for, after all? So they went to the next Australian Embassy to get a new temporary passport for Mark. This should have been no problem, or it wasn't - until the kind employee at the embassy found out that Mark has an unfortunate tendancy to separate himself from this document. This reduced the employee's kindness quickly and effectively. All in all it had to be the third or even fourth time Mark underwent the procedure of losing his identity documents within only three years! Rumour says he has been threatened to be sent right back to New Zealand next time this happens...

Of course, they missed their flight to Europe and were forced interrupt their journey - just on Craig's birthday!
We can imagine better birthday presents for a good friend, Mark!

This alone would have been funny enough, and the story became the running gag at the convention - little by little adopted by the other guests, too. Admittedly, Craig went a bit too far eventually and had to face the wrathful revenge of Mark's faithful Evil Elven Princesses - mostly because we see it as our royal privilege to tease him mercilessly.

Unfortunately, the story didn't end here. After Ring*Con, Craig and Mark decided to visit one of Europe's most beautiful cities, Prague. They took the night train and reached the German-Czech border deep in the night - just to be expelled from the train more quickly than you can say "What passport story?" and found themselves on the pavement of an obscure little town's station deep in the Middle of Nowhere in Germany at about 2 o'clock in the morning. As an additional irony of fate, the town's name is 'Marktredwitz'. :)
It would have been wise, had Mark informed himself about - before starting the trip! - that some countries don't allow entry without a proper passport, valid for at least the next three or even six months...

It testifies Craig’s enormous good-naturedness that he didn't kill Mark instantly. Applause and reverence for such a friend!