The Kindness of Strangers

My friend was kind enough to give us her couch as she is inheriting one herself. We took the couch because a) we need another one and b) we don't really like the couch we have now. My female roommate and I have two male roommates- who somehow always tend to be gone or asleep whenever we need help carrying heavy things and so we're left to fend for ourselves.

After parking the beast of the van we had, we carried the couch from the basement parking lot of her building, to our van parked around the corner, and into the beast. Then we had to park again in front of our house. Needless to say we were having a difficult time parallel parking this 9+ foot animal. Our street is only wide enough to allow one car pass at a time so we were most definitely blocking traffic. A garbage truck was trying to to the other direction but they waited patiently as my roommate backed up, pulled forward, backed up, forward, back... And then the waste management personnel (i.e. trash men) hopped off the back of their ride and offered, with a big smile, to help us park the van. And they did so in seconds.

All I could think of in the meantime, while the man parked our van, was that my wallet lay in the middle console for anyone to take. I was actually nervous about this man stealing my wallet while I watched him park.

And then we took the couch out and lugged it out of the van and up the first few stairs to our door. Then we hit another few stairs and I pretty much gave up. My arms were tired, I was tired, and it was starting to sprinkle. And here comes kind stranger number two, a young Oaxaqueno man who offered to help us carry it in. With his help we were able to get our new sofa in the door in no time at all.

Then he came inside, had a class of water and chatted with us and all I thought was, hmmm... maybe he's staking out our place to see what he can steal.

I finally stopped, paused, and took a moment outside of my accusatory thoughts and realized how distrusting I've become. I automatically thought the worse in these strangers when really, they were showing their best. I felt momentarily ashamed that I'd been so judgemental. I'm not saying I should let my guard down, DC is a city with problems after all, but I think I learned my lesson. Sometimes a kind gesture is nothing more than that...