So my daughter is in her neighborhood supermarket this morning. She lives on Passyunk Avenue not far from the site of Philadelphia’s old and infamous Tasker projects; in other words, in an area of our fair city generally not known for its niceties and extravagances.
She was shopping for essentials – just enough to feed the three young mouths in her family, a job that has become increasingly difficult for most of us these days, including my daughter. Predictably, her cart was not filled; the bottom lined with just enough groceries to make it through the weekend, with some stretching.
But when she swiped her debit card, everything changed. It was rejected.
This time, even the usual grace period from her bank (accompanied with a fat over-draft penalty) was skipped over. Her eyes began to well up with tears.
But then, something unexpected happened.
A local resident standing behind her in line, a total stranger, offered to pay my daughter’s $50 dollar grocery tab. My daughter was shocked, and the kindness of the woman only caused my daughter to break out in inconsolable sobs. Of course, my daughter profusely thanked the woman for her kind offer but said she couldn’t possibly accept such an extravagant advancement. The woman persisted until my daughter, too weak to even defend herself from her rescuer, gave in, but only on the condition she could return a few less-critical items before accepting the woman’s incredibly kind offer. But the woman would not hear of it and insisted she not return a single item among her intended purchases. Again, my daughter relented and asked for the woman’s name and address. The woman responded, “It’s a gift and not one necessary to repay.” Again my daughter pleaded, but to no avail, as the woman handed the cashier the $50 dollars and change to cover my daughter’s purchase. My daughter waited for the woman to complete her own stop at the register and followed her to the exit, hoping to persuade the woman to at least share her name, but the woman raced off to her car and disappeared before my daughter could even read the license plate.
But isn’t that just like America’s lazy, shiftless poor, those sub-human urban denizen’s Newt Gingrich has so eloquently educated us about?