And This is Love... Tie-Dye Style

I'm at the miniature speed boat races in Old Town, Idaho. In a corner of the parking lot are a handful of vendors selling food, books, pocketknives, and tie-dye shirts. Hundreds of people have walked past those shirts, looking at them touching them, admiring them. One lady in particular did more.

Walking past the shirt display with her husband and two leashed dogs, one of them lifts a leg

and pees on the shirts. The lady didn't even hesitate. Handing her leash to her husband, she directed him to get the dogs away and she started going through the rack. She smelled and felt every shirt until she located the two anointed ones. Taking them off the rack, she walked into the tent and bought them both. She didn't ask for understanding or hand the shirts over for the dealer to mess with. She just bought them.

She was in the vendor area to buy lunch, not two tie-dye shirts. She could have walked away, pretending it never happened. She could have justified such behavior by telling herself no one saw it happen (except for me, but she didn't know that.) Instead, knowing the dealer would lose money if they had to be tossed or that someone might buy them in all innocence and then feel cheated, she did the proper and loving thing by assuming responsibility for her dogs and purchasing both shirts.

That lady was a hero in my book because, though she had no idea I was watching, she demonstrated to me what love is at a public market.