I remember those lines on Easter or Christmas days, when people waited from 2 in the morning for some eggs. The families organized themselves: one would stay for 2 hours and then another came to replace him so the other could go home and have some sleep, and then a third would come to continue the ?shift?. And about 7 or 8 in the morning the whole family was reunited, as every member had a right to one box of eggs. So that a line that had seemed flimsy before was now bulging up into a cramming crowd. Lots of people, lots of noise, and if you had the chance to stand in the front ranks you could get whole eggs when the shop opened and started to sell? (S. C., 5)

You can imagine that no one was happy to stand there for hours on end to buy some eggs or other food products that were sold in rations. We felt like cattle rushing for food, which they may or may not get. One person only had a right to five eggs, and if you wanted 30, you had to bring the whole family to stand in the line. It was hell! As for good quality salami or sausages, or coffee, you could only have them if you knew someone; poor quality was available, though. But starting with 1985, restrictions became drastic, it was the time when Ceausescu started having some buildings built (the House of the People was already built and the metro was under construction). (M.C., 105)

You cannot talk about proper elections, as there was nobody to vote for. We had to go to the ballots for the same reason we do it today, because they put a stamp on your ID card. The only name on the list was Ceausescu?s, so? As for the other elections, for mayors, secretaries, they would fiercely fight among themselves. One year I was appointed supervisor and also had to count the votes. When I opened the ballots I would see all sorts of curses at those whose names were on the list, but we pretended we hadn?t seen anything, otherwise we would have a difficult time with the party officials and the other supervisors. The fouled ballot paper were counted together with the valid ones, (I don?t know how many times I had to count the books to match the figures demanded from the top); they knew there were let?s say 3,500 people registered to vote at a certain poling station, of which 3,498 were needed to submit a valid ballot paper and to vote for Ceausescu. (O. S., 41)

I had to vote at a music high school. I would enter the poling booth, pulled the curtain, and read the candidates? names. They were women?s names, so I wrote off their manes with the pen writing instead Ana Ipatescu and Ecaterina Teodoroiu. That made me feel great. (7)