A Love Story in a Single Paragraph

He was a blonde-headed, long, tall drink of water with more tattoos than he had bare skin on his arms and legs and he was loading their groceries in the cart.  She was a short, slightly-chubby thing with several tattoos herself, wearing glasses and sporting hair that was obviously dyed from a bottle that must have been labeled "Black as Egypt."  She was paying for the groceries.  In the child's seat was a little blonde-headed moppet with a Disney Princess T-shirt on, happy as a lark and making funny faces at me while I waited for my turn to check out.  She was a little doll and when her dad looked my way I spoke to her and said something like "well aren't you the cutest thing" and she just grinned.  Her dad looked at me and replied  "she sure is the cutest thing" and then he paused for just a second and looked at me again with a smile and then said "just like her mama".  To me the onlooker, that child looked nothing like the girl paying for the groceries but at that very instant there was absolutely nothing else in the world that could have competed with that compliment.  That short, slightly-chubby, slightly-tattooed, glasses wearing, dyed-hair sporting young thing suddenly straightened up a little and looked at him with such love and tenderness that I swear for an instant she looked 10 feet tall and runway model beautiful.  The love that passed between them in that moment was more tangible than if a dozen tuxedoed men had just waltzed by the cash registers singing "You Are So Beautiful" and I felt incredibly privileged to have witnessed it.  I watched this odd little family as they walked out of the store laughing and talking, quite in their own little world, her chubby little arm linked in his as they pushed their daughter and their groceries out of the store and in to the night.   Sometimes Walmart can indeed be the very best place to make a memory.