Someone

# pretend this isn't just a loop. pretend these are actually web requests, and scope isn't shared, but thread_data is available.
# perhaps I can initialize the encrypter, and store it in thread_data
# perhaps an initialized encrypter can be assigned to the Fields class when it's imported by the thread.
for request in currentThread.newRequests():
  storage = Fields(**request)
  # idea is that there is a _set_encrypted function that will automatically encrypt values being assigned to it
  storage.encrypted = request.specialValue


class Fields(sqlobject):
  def _set_encrypted(self, value):
    """Store the encrypted value, not the plain value.
    """
    # constantly initialize the encrypter?
    # would like to avoid that.

class encrypter():
  def __init__(self):
    self.loadKey()
  # ...
  def encrypt(self, msg):
    return self.encryptMsgUsingKey(msg)