I should have bought a lottery ticket that day

Last week I had a dentist appointment out in the boons of St. Paul and I also needed to get our care package to Helen popped in the mail. I knew there was a post office not too far off my route so took the package along, figuring I'd stop and mail it on my way back to the office. This package included some very important items like a disposable camera the orphanage staff will use to take pictures of Helen there and return to us; a soft photo album with photos of us, our families, our house, and her room all labeled in Chinese; a security blanket I slept with so it smells like me (pew); and a book of questions the orphanage staff will fill out about Helen and return to us. Very important items, very important package, very.

So I drive around this weird, totally industrial area of St. Paul - a little strip of land sandwiched between the river (Mississippi - it flows through both Minneapolis AND St. Paul because it sort of snakes around there quite a bit, did you know that? All you geography buffs out there?). Where was I? Ok, so I'm driving around this warehousey bit between the river and the huge bluffs and finally, I happen upon it after much craning of my neck and turning around of my car, etc. Walk in, very quiet for noonish, one clerk - grouchy, two others in line. As I stand there waiting for my turn, I begin to feel a little edgy. I'm not exactly asking for a book of 20 stamps, I need to send this stuff International Express Mail. I realize OTHER people do this kind of thing all the time but I'd never done it before and the list of instructions my agency had provided me, wadded in my hand, was beginning to get soggy with my unease. It's just that the package was so important to me and I didn't want to screw this up, right? So I'm standing there with the box in an unsealed padded envelope, in case they have some sort of special, fancy envelope I need to use, my list of instructions, and the orphanage's address my agency gave me with both the English version and the Chinese characters version of the address.
Wait, wait, wait, I'm waiting doot, doo-doo. "Man, this guy is grouchy," I say to myself as he rudely "assists" each patron in front of me.
Next! I tell him what I want to do and he replies that the envelope I have provided is fine. Then I lay on him that I need to afix this address label to the envelope. I hold it up, showing it to him.
"You can't do that. We have to use the airbill as the mailing label," he says.
I say, "Well then, I want to tape this to the airbill."
"You can't do that, no. It's too big and it has to go through all four copies of the airbill. You'll have to copy it. Just use the English address."
I frantically search my pages of instructions.
"Ok, so it says here that if I can't use both addresses - I should use the CHINESE address. So I'll need to tape that part to the airbill." I hold it up again.
"No way. You'll have to copy it..."
Whaaaa? Copy the Chinese characters? Ok this this what it looks like:

You can see what I'm up against, right? He hands me the Customs form, the airbill and barks out "Next!"

I wander over to the counter to start filling out the paperwork as much as I can, muttering to myself the whole time. "I'm not done with you yet, Mister. Don't mess with me. You will bend to my will if it kills me, " etc. Thankfully, while I stood at the counter filling out my paperwork, Mr. Grouchy "helped" the three or four others in line and went on lunch break. Enter Mr. Just Had Lunch, Feeling Fine. It's just him and me now, so I approach his station with my best "I know you can help little ol' me" smile. I tell him what I'd like to do and that the OTHER gentleman told me I had to copy the Chinese characters MYSELF onto the airbill (!!!), can you believe that, and where it's going they mostly don't speak any English so I must show the Chinese characters and I just can't copy the characters myself because I will no doubt make a mistake (see above) and then this very important package that I'm sending to my beloved DAUGHTER will not reach her and so on. To which he replies with a friendly smile, "Well, you're just going to have to do the best you can." No, he really said that. I kept thinking, "Why don't they just make 4 photocopies of this address and tape it to all four copies of the airbill?" Then I realized that there's this annoying gov't thing about not using office equipment and supplies in a way that would actually HELP someone. (Apologies to anyone from my office who might be reading this...)

All the while we're having this conversation, I had the vague sense another person had entered the post office and was messing with some boxes behind me, bringing the total of those present up to exactly three. Him, me and new person. "I can help you," the other person offered. Huh? I turned around to see a young Asian woman standing next to a large stack of boxes she'd schlepped in from her car. "I'm Japanese but I can write Chinese characters. If you show me the address, I can copy it to the airbill for you."

Now what are the chances of THAT?

I'm so glad I remembered, in that most beautiful of moments, my camera phone. The above photo will go in Helen's memory book. Further evidence that some things are just meant to be.

(Huge apologies to the brilliant woman pictured above, who will remain nameless, in case that when you said it was ok to take your photo, you meant that I could take your photo but NOT ok to post it on my blog.)