I sat next to a nice man who helped me put my coat and my heavy roll-on bag in the overhead and then get them down after we landed.
Now, I had also replaced my regular purse with a supersized one as a way of weaseling the equivalent of two carry-on bags so I would not have to check a bag, but I had overstuffed that second bag, thus breaking its zipper. I tied the bag's handles together to prevent everything from spilling out, but even when the zipper was intact I had trouble handling with just my left hand the heavily packed roll-on bag with the overstuffed "purse" perched on top of it, since my right hand had to use my cane to allow me to walk safely.
From my first steps off the plane, as we made our way through the tunnel from the plane to the airport, I struggled with my bag. I told those behind me to go on past me, saying that I would be moving too slowly and didn't want to delay them.
My seatmate, whose name I hadn't learned, even though we'd chatted during much of our flight, excused himself to squeeze past the two passengers that he had allowed to get in front of him for debarcation after getting my overhead bag down for me. He took my heavy, awkward bags from me--even though he had a roll-on bag and a messenger bag of his own to carry--and pulled them through the tunnel for me. I tried to take my big "purse" from him at least, since it--and its broken zipper situation--made it the worst problem, but he insisted on handling all of my stuff for me.
When we got into the airport, he stayed with me even after we exited the gate area, and he would not abandon me until we located the friend who had come to pick me up.
If I had been the kind of racist idiot that awful woman was, I would have been deprived of the company of this man during that 2-hour-plus flight, as well as his much appreciated--and much needed--assistance after we landed. Even without his help after we'd landed that would have been a real loss, since I was too tired to read as I usually do, but too uncomfortable in those tiny airplane seats to sleep. My conversation with this sweet man--which covered the sort of political and economic topics we discuss here on DU--made a huge difference in making the flight bearable.
ON EDIT: I see from other comments that the OP story isn't actually true. Well, mine is, even though it's not as perfect in its revelatory arc.
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