I want to be clear that I could have won that argument.

I had the tickets.

I had paid.

Every rule and every decency was on my side, and if I had raised my voice, some of those silent passengers would have found their spines and taken it up, and the gate agent would have backed down.

I knew all of that in the moment.

But I also knew something the agent did not, which is that a child does not remember who was right.