The Kindness of Strangers

This past weekend B & I hauled our butts to Washington D.C. to knock out three legs of paperchasing, as well as have a little time to ourselves. Because we both work, I go to school, he has a music studio, and we are going to have C full-time for a few weeks, we really wanted some time with just us. And honestly? If this dossier doesn't get to China by the end of this month I truly believe I am going to stroke out and die.
The trip up was pretty non-eventful, so I won't bore anyone with the details. We got to the hotel, which was nice, but nowhere near the Metro station. Yes, I will be calling hotels.com to bitch about that Big Fat Lie.
The next morning we drove to the Metro station, which sucked because we had to buy one-way tickets because of morning commuters. Anyways, we got off the Metro and realized that we have piss-poor directions to the Authentications office. I went up to a very robust Homeland Security guard at a hot-dog stand and asked him for directions. Being a helpful asshole, he basically told me "No, I am not helping you," and turned his back. I guess the call of a greasy hot-dog smothered in onions at 9:30 in the morning was more important than assisting a fellow citizen.
A woman with a huge wig was standing beside him, and when she saw this guy being an asshole, she volunteered to walk us there. We were grateful, and patiently waited while she bought herself a hot-dog and BB-Q corn chips, and then walked several blocks to the Authentications office. We thanked her and she went on her way.
As we walked in, we saw two little girls playing outside in the courtyard where the Authentications office is housed. One was Caucasian and the other was Chinese. We admired their cuteness, walked in, took a number, and waited until we were called. When we handed the worker our packet, she told us that we could only authenticate 15 out of 16 pages. When I asked if I could do 15 and B could do one, she told us "No, you two are together." Okay, by this point I was getting pissed. Hearing me argue with her, a man sitting in the waiting room said, "You know what, I'm not with them. Give it to me, I'll walk it through!" He was pissed on our behalf! I said, "You know, that's a great idea," and started to hand him one of our documents. At this point, the woman said, "I'll talk to my supervisor." Shortly she came back and wiggled her fingers at me. I handed over the document and sweetly said, "Thank you so much."
As we were waiting, B struck up a conversation with two women in the waiting room. One was an adoption courier (she was also the mother of the two little girls) and the other was a professional courier. B told them we were adopting and why we were visiting D.C. After the adoption courier split, B asked the other woman for directions to the Chinese Consulate. The woman began rattling off how to get there. B then asked, "How long do you think it will take us to walk there from here?" Looking shocked, the woman said, "You cant walk to China! It's too far! I'm going there next, I'll give you a ride."
By this point we were feeling pretty discouraged. Things just weren't as hearts-and-flowers as we expected. We looked at each other, and said, "Okay." This lady didn't look like a serial killer or a freak, she looked like a mom. Besides, we knew if she tried anything, we could take her - she maybe weighed 130 pounds. We got our paperwork back, checked it, and walked with this woman, who introduced herself as "Debbie," to her van. It was obvious then she really was a mom, because that van said "kids" all over it. We strapped in and the ride began with a massive U-turn right in the middle of downtown D.C. traffic. Let's just say I held onto the "Oh Shit!" bar the entire ride.
Debbie walked us in and began walking us through the process. We could not believe how helpful this woman was being - she didn't have to help us at all. She kept saying, "You guys look so nice, there's no way I would leave you."
We had decided to leave our documents with the Chinese Consulate, because to wait for them would have cost us over 500 dollars more. As we waited, the adoption courier walked in with her daughters, and said, "Hey, you beat us here." Debbie asked her how they got to the Consulate and she told us they rode the bus. Debbie asked her where they were going after their drop-off, and she said, "We'll ride the bus back to the Metro." Debbie then said, "I'm taking them back to the Metro station, my van seats 7, so ride with us."
Amazingly, we all finished within 3 minutes of each other. We walked back to van, all piled in, and Debbie made another massive U-turn and two-wheeled it back to the Metro station. As we all got our stuff and poured out, B said, "You can't imagine how much you've helped us. Is there anything we can do? Buy you some gas? Buy you lunch?" Debbie just smiled and said, "Nope. I have a good story to tell my family. They'll probably kill me for giving a ride to strangers, but you guys looked so nice, it was fine. Good luck!" She waved, made another U-turn and sped off.
We said good-bye to the adoption courier and her children and rode down into the belly of the Metro station, shaking our heads in amazement at how wonderful people can be.