I accidentally watched a couple get engaged, today.

I didn’t understand what I was seeing, at first. I was in The Bay,

utilizing its warmth as I do most days, due to its perfect positioning on my way from A to B (A and B both being cold). The Bay doesn’t quite know what it wants to be, anymore. A fur trading company hundreds of years ago, its evolved into a semi-sad state of wanting to please everyone and pleasing no one. As a result, they have a furniture department, but it’s fairly half-hearted. No “Come make a home in this incredibly inviting 90 sq. feet!” like you see at IKEA. No opulent room recreations like you’d see at a store dedicated to furniture. No, this is more of a neatly laid out, workman-like display of just the basics.

Which is why none of it made sense, at first.

I’m not the only one who cheats the cold with this little shortcut. Every day, there are teenagers and ne’er do wells in hoodies and even some of the city’s residentially challenged drifting through this department. Some are even bold enough to drape themselves over dryers and sectional sofas and box springs, taking a dubiously deserved break. So the couple on the bed barely caught my eye. But then she started the squealing. The “Oh my GOD!”-ing. And he beamed, so proud that he had pulled off a perfect moment. And then they hugged.

Her friend was with them. Right over top of them, actually.

“Lemme SEE it! Lemme SEE it!”

She took 3 steps back, to take pictures with her cell phone’s camera.

(The friend did not seem to have my issues with having intruded on a private moment.)

And I wanted to be cynical about the whole thing.

But fuck it.

Mazel tov to the both of them.

To all 3 of them.

To anyone who finds giddy happiness in the most unlikely of places.