The toilet paper was sold in front of groceries, where it was stored in huge cylindrical bales of 1000 rolls each. Queues were, of course, in order. Prudent people brought strings for threading the paper rolls, which could thus be arranged in a unique necklace, were one?s hands busy with something else. The longer the queue, the smaller the number of rolls one person could get, up to nil. Once, one comrade (former ?sir?, since he had worn-out clothes and a hat, which was suspicious to Party eyes), was giving technical information to the other people around: ?May it be Adjud-produced paper! It?s one centimeter larger and much stronger. The others are thinner and weaker, which means a waste of soap when you have to wash your hands?? (51)

Of course it was hardly available, and sold by rations too. When you did find some, that was an event! I couldn?t tell, even now, whether it was better with the Scinteia, the Party Paper. For Romanian toilet paper was so thick and rough, dark gray and brown spotted, with bits of straw and wood splinters. I remember how surprised I was when my uncle who lived in Switzerland, after one week spent here with us, took one such toilet paper roll with him (he made me stand three hours in a queue to get it) to show it to people there. He said that otherwise no one would believe him. (125)

Toilet paper had become a rarity. My regret is that I haven?t kept one for posterity. It was rough and full of black lint. In the summer of 1990 I was in Breb, Maramures. Several Belgians had come there with aids for the children. The truck stopped in front of the school. It was packed full with school supplies. One little girl stood by the truck, blond hair, blue eyes, dressed in holiday clothes, and asked: ?Have they brought toilet paper?? (7)

As early as the late 60s there appeared in Romania the Trabant, the Democratic German version of the English Mini, except the Trabant, if really cute, it never was spared unfair irony. The vehicle soon became the favorite car of the less so well off. Besides its radically smaller price ? half the price of a regular Romanian-made Dacia ? the Trabant had lots of other advantages. Mind you, those advantages did not reside in its special devices and equipment; quite on the contrary they stemmed from the very lack of the same: it had no radiator, no usual petrol filter, no oil injection pomp ? which meant that oil and petrol combustion didn?t take place in the carburetor. Plus, you didn?t have to worry about  the bonnet getting all rusty ? it was made of cardboard and canvass.