I hate to reveal this (anyone can see I’m really suffering) but as all of Christendom is observing Lent, and the rest want to lose a little weight by giving up chocolate and Facebook for forty days, I feel I must make an uncomfortable confession: I am a querist. That’s right, a querist. One who “enquires” per my ratty, old Webster’s or “inquires” if you need everything in US English. If you happen to be employed by a large, clean, successful grocery chain with good lighting, then you know me well. I’m that lady with the startled, self-conscious smile, the one who is “not quite ready” to check-out when you approach me with an open lane but seems to be lingering near an empty counter for an awfully long time.

What I should be doing, what I’m trying to look like I’m doing with a piece of wrinkled paper and a old, tooth-pocked pencil in my hand, is check my list against what’s in my cart. What I’m really doing is trying to figure out how to discreetly slip a disreputable publication into my cart so I can get out of there, sit in the parking lot and read all about Brad, Jennifer and Angelina at the Oscars, why Joaquin Phoenix fuzzed out on Letterman and how much weight Jessica Simpson has gained while my husband’s ice cream melts.

I know, I know, it’s awful. It’s rampantly vacuous and indicative of the lure of what can only be decried as sebaceous vulgarity. What it says about me isn’t so hot either. I swear, I do read better. In my bathroom right this second is a dissertation on psychiatry in the Victorian era, The Confessions of Saint Augustine, a copy of The Menopause Manager ($1 at Goodwill) and I keep something by Charles Dickens on me at all times. Not only do I read better, I know better. I know most of these stories contain only slivers of truth, and are staged to coincide with a movie premier or some other project that needs gross amounts of public attention and funding. And yet, I read on. If I don’t buy it (Heavens! I could never bring myself to subscribe.) I sneak it online. When I should be reading about the Pope’s visit to Africa, I’m reading about Madonna and A-Rod. (who seem to have cooled a little since she’s taken up with a young model named, Jesus. For real.)

Two days ago, a little headline caught my attention: “Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston Split.” Since then, everyone is picking it up. Levi’s already been on Good Morning America, another outlet is reporting that his sister said Bristol called his family, “white trash.” There’s the opinion of the right, the opinion of the left, and those who say this story wouldn’t get any attention at all if Bristol and Levi weren’t white. Already the parade of experts have been rolled out flapping statistics on teen pregnancy, the failure of abstinence programs and the even greater failure of marriages that do actually result from these young unions. Levi said he wasn’t mature enough. Bristol said she was devastated. All I could do was wince.

Oh sure, Bristol and Levi will grow up, figure it out, move on to college or some other lofty endeavor and eventually marry someone that probably won’t be the other to have what appears to be a normal life in the relative sense. Twenty years from now, their baby, Tripp, will be voting and nobody will mention it (much) but one thing is certain; it will always ache a little.

The things that happen to us when we’re 16, especially those things that involve a public knowledge of the most private, tender parts of ourselves, never completely vanish. I realize I’m projecting here, but I feel more than a little sorry for Bristol and Levi, for all those young couples who have similar wounds that will be permanently etched in their memories, most of all by what others have harshly said to them and about them.

Teenagers have always been teenagers and will always be teenagers, teetering on the verge of only everything their lives will eventually become. A little mercy, a smattering of empathy, some compassion grounded in decency, might help the process go a little smoother for everyone.