We had a Gypsy colleague, Gogu, rather kleptomaniac, otherwise a very generous man. We would send him to buy things because he did it very quickly ? he would not get in front of everyone else, but he was called in front. He would go, and as he knew all the shop-assistants he would tell them: ?Liliana, give me please some of that salami because I want to make an office for the living Ceausescu!? You can imagine that everybody stepped aside, nobody wanted to get anywhere near him, and the moment he shouted out loud this thing, everybody made room for him, all the queue would instantly disappear and the shop-assistant did not know how to o of more help so that he would leave quicker. This is what he did each time at all the queues he had ever stood and each time he managed to get what he wanted before his turn would come.

When there were no potatoes ? well, there was not anything really ? at a great market place like IMGB, suddenly a sign would appear saying: ?tomorrow, we are selling potatoes?. The next morning, there was a crowd in front of the store and at eight o?clock, some man comes out an says: ?comrades, we have potatoes, but we give them only to those who have a Bucharest I.D.?. The ones that did not have one left. In an hour, the guy comes out again: ?comrades, we have potatoes, but we give them only to those who have a family, to those who are married?. A part of the men gathered there left. After a while, the guy comes out again and says: ?comrades, we have potatoes, but we give them only to those who have a party card?. There were only about thirty or forty people in front of the supermarket. In one hour, the guy comes out again: ?comrades, we have potatoes, but we give them only to those who have some political activity. Six or seven people were left. When the man sees how many they were, he calls them into the warehouse ? there was no potato in the supermarket. The people got mad, but the man calmed them down, telling them something of the kind: ?now, comrades because you are members of the party, you have to understand ? we do not have potatoes.? (O. S., 169)

At the end of the ?80s, people were queuing for milk and other food products. The queue had become reality of the day. There were queuing for everything, the queue for the sake of the queue. Then the joke appeared with that man leaning against the wall, miserable and everything, and after they all stood in a queue: ?But what do they sell here?? ?I do not know but I am not leaving because somebody might bring something. I was never the first in the line so I am staying right here until they bring something, look at the big queue gathered behind me?.

Let me tell you something about a bag, the bag of a high official. At a certain moment, I enter in a structure like this with the intention of working in a youth organization. An older gentleman took me, seeing me rather frightened, rather unanchored in reality and he tells me: ?Let us discuss a little bit and drink a beer.? ?Where do you want me to get a beer on this heat? Can?t you see that when it appears, there is instantly a queue formed? ?Come on, we are going to solve this somehow.? Hardly did we get there that it happened: at a store, they had brought beer. Immediate queue and extraordinary scandal. They did not bring large quantities and this generated a lot of problems. People saw him at the queue and called him: ?Comrade X, we have some problems here! Com and ?? A few representatives of the queue insisted on witnessing the whole thing until the beer sold out.