Moving to the metropolis known as the District has been instructional in several different realms of my life, particularly about the infamous "rat race" in DC. It is difficult to fully comprehend the terrible drivers, the nightmarish commutes, the corporate competitiveness, and the humorless masses of the rat race unless one has experienced it for themselves. DC is, in fact, infamous for its rat race due to the ridiculously long commutes for employees in the area (it takes me 2 hrs to go 20 miles to get to work) and the cold demeanor of many of its residents and 9-5ers.
Lost in the rivers of the red and gold lights of the morning and evening traffic and its reputation as an unfriendly city are the random acts of kindness (believe it or not, it does happen). Yesterday one of those acts happened to me. I was driving out of the Metro parking lot thinking about all of the things I wanted to do when I got home when I went to swipe my SmartCard (the Metro's card that commuters can put money on) and it would not work. Of course, I panicked and re-swiped the card at least a dozen more times (as if that would solve the problem), while thinking that the card had had significantly more than enough money to pay for parking when I had swiped it leaving the Metro system only a few minutes earlier and that it should not have a negative balance as the card reader had told me. I put the car in reverse to go to another exit where I could use my credit card but, of course, there was a line of cars behind me so I couldn't do that and I put my hazard lights and debated on whether or not to get out of the car to talk to the attendant at another exit and tried my card for the 13th time to see if maybe, just maybe, this time it would work and ... and ... and ... Needless to say I was stressed and on the verge of losing it after commuting from work for the past one and a half hours. When I finally decided to get out of my car to do something effective instead of swiping my card for the 14th time, a stranger from one of the cars behind me came up to the card reader and swiped his card to open the gate to the exit. What surprised me most about this was not just the fact that someone had willingly spent their money to help out me, a stranger, but that while I was apologizing profusely and sputtering out that I thought I had enough money on my card and I didn't know why it wasn't working, this guy, one of those 9-5ers living out DC's rat race everyday, was nice about it. He said don't worry about it, it's ok, and most importantly he did not curse at me or tell me how stupid I was for holding everyone up. Perhaps these are low standards to have, but in a city like DC that meant a lot.
In the end, of course, the card was actually fine and the money I had on my card could only be applied to using the bus or the train, not parking (thanks for the commuter "benefits" AU!). But, it is times like these that remind me that DC is an ok place to be most of the time and I become the young country girl enamored with the magic of the big city all over again.
