Her name is Jennifer and she's one of those many barely middle-class Americans - social workers, counselors, advocates - who work with people who have nothing. She works with Baltimore children in foster care, children born at the bottom, boys and girls who know poverty, abandonment and abuse before they know anything else.
Jennifer asked me not to use her full name because she's not supposed to speak publicly about her cases. Plus, her husband won't be happy when he finds out she used their credit card again. So I didn't push it. Besides, Jennifer's purpose was not to tell about herself, but about two others: the girl she tried to help in Lutherville the other day, and the stranger who performed a random act of kindness.
What we end up with is a little perspective for those who are worried - or regretful - that recession has brought America's consumer spending binge to a grinding halt and might be forcing us to live on less and with less for years to come. Some people, it is useful to remember, have been stuck there all along, and many are just kids.
One day last week, Jennifer drove to the Goodwill store on Padonia Road. A teenage girl she worked with needed clothes. Jennifer wanted to buy her some, though that's considered crossing a boundary in the social services profession.
"Imagine being a teenage girl and never getting cool clothing," Jennifer told me. "And my Goodwill has some really good stuff, cool brands, hardly worn at all."
Hardly worn at all, leftovers from America's long, long shopping binge.
"Also," Jennifer says, "I was using my credit card so as to hide my deed from my husband, for at least a month. ... Anyhow, there was so much good stuff for this girl. She is 17, no family in sight, scrapping away in a group home for teen mothers, hanging in there, against all odds, so she can get her GED and maybe have some kind of hope.
"So my cart was getting full, and I was getting sweaty, adding it up in my head. It came to $100. I'm thinking, 'Jenny, you impulsive dunderhead. You have three kids of your own, and your job just got cut to part-time, and the interest on this credit card is 16 percent! What are you thinking?"
She was thinking about the kids she works with.
