I learned from a friend about the old Depression scheme called layaway only last summer. As you explain in your article, it allows a buyer to put a deposit for a particular piece of merchandise, which the store puts in storage for a few months until it has been paid out in full, usually by means of small payments (“The Layaway Way,” January 10, 2009). If the buyer cannot complete the agreement, the payments are refunded, minus a service charge. The old scheme is now coming back across the United States, but it has apparently never completely disappeared. My friend—who happens to be young, female, and black—is from Detroit. The city has been in such a poor way for so many years that layaway is a normal way of doing business there. Depression is apparently always much closer to some places than others.