Faith in Humanity Restored!

I had a flight to Phoenix this afternoon, and airports almost always bum me out. The "me first" mentality and general grumpiness of airports blows. I tried to be cheerful and just role with everything in my dramamine induced mellowness, when the weird lady next to me at the gate started painting her freakin' toenails! Seriously, that's gross for many reasons, #1 being the stench of nail-polish and the sight of her icky feet. Maybe that's two things, but it just goes to show how uber gross it was. She asked the woman sitting on the other side of her if it was ok if she did it, but she didn't say jack-shit to me. Well, that was probably for the best considering how my interactions with weird strangers generally don't go well. Ok, so that said...it was really the only thing that totally annoyed me today. Now onto the pozzy aspect of my adventure...

I noticed an older woman in line ahead of me for boarding passes, and I was surprised that she was traveling alone. She was probably in her 80s, cute as hell, and doing her best to navigate her way through our airport...which if you've been to it, is about the size of a Taco Bell. For real. Anyway, this older woman got on the plane by herself, and ended up being seated in front of me. Seeing her reminded me of my Gram, who I miss terribly, so I decided to silently keep an eye on her. Just to make sure she didn't run into any issues along the way.

When the plane landed, and the cabin door opened, all these a-holes on the plane started rushing down the aisle, not having a single thought that maybe other people were on the plane and would like to get off too. I'm all about the idea that you de-plane in the order of the seats...up front gets off first, and you wait for the folks in front of you to get off, etc. I'm all about order and I hate the "I have a connection and I'm sure nobody else but me needs to get off this plane!" attitude. I got up and blocked the aisle in order to let the older woman and the people in her row time to exit.

Once we got off the plane we had to walk through the jetway, which was actually a covered ramp sloped upward to get us back into the terminal. I was having a bit of trouble walking on my wobbly legs as we exited, and I noticed the older woman in front of me was too. Well, out of nowhere this young man, I'd say 20 or so, passed by me. I thought he was rushing to get ahead of everyone like some sort of jerk, when he put his hand on the older woman's shoulder and asked if he could carry her bag. He carried her bag, held her hand, and slowly walked her up to the gate. He chatted with her and left her with her daughter who was waiting for her at the gate. Then he was off on his way. Like some sort of do-good Kayser Soze.

Seriously, I'm a bit of a coldy, but this was one of the most touching things I've seen in a really long time. Right when I thought the world was so full of douches, I see such a lovely act of kindness. Whoever you are kid, way to go!