There were some tens of persons, between fifty and one hundred. I never queued in a shorter line. One stood 2-3 hours ? tore one?s clothes apart?There were some people playing the part of the ?vigilantes?, supervising the order, but after 5-6 persons, they went to the beginning of the queue and crammed their bags. There were such ?volunteers? in every queue.

We heard from our neighbors, (that there was food at the food store) or we saw by chance, when we came back from work, and we queued. Or there was a shop assistant who lived in the neighborhood and she phoned a friend, who phoned another friend and so on. (In Ceausescu?s times, the shop assistants and the persons who worked in the trade were a privileged class ? college or university studies were unimportant?) you could give more money to the seller and she put the product aside for you, you did not need to queue. But I do not know how much ? I simply cannot remember the value of the money in those days.

One cannot say food ratio without saying queue. You associate them unknowingly. (L. A., 162)

At 5 a.m., some people were sleeping without worries. Others woke up, you were not allowed to be late at work, it would have been a disaster. Others woke up to get their food supplies in the mornings, there was not much left in the afternoons. Others woke up to queue. Others were already queuing since 2 a.m. or, if there was nearly certain that the store was going to be supplied with something, some people might have been waiting since 11 p.m. They brought their chairs and were ready to spend their entire night there.

There were some queue-supervisors. They knew how the queue should be, and they were in charge with the order. So, if the queue supervisor happened to be at the beginning of the queue and he sacrificed himself, it was a very ordered queue. So this ?supervisor? came in the evening, around 11 p.m., put his chair there, and brought a book or something, or a neighbor to talk to. He slept during the day and spent his nights over there. Everybody who passed by talked to him, about anything. There was also a list with names. But (only) if the list remained at that man from the beginning of the queue, who sacrificed himself to wait longer after his own turn came, everything was all right.

There were also queues with a reversal of situations, namely the list was written down, but when the merchandise came, when the van showed up, many people gathered and if they were more than those on the list, the queue was ruined, people wrestled a little, the queue was reorganized and it remained that way.