I had another way with the gasoline. I worked at a food shop, where we could lay hands on meat supplies; and the administrators had made connections with a military unit. The boys brought armored-car gas, stocked it inside the butchery, took their meat and went away, while I filled the reservoir of my Trabant with armored-car gas, which was not fit for other cars. And it was half cheaper than the usual gasoline. (I. H., 54)

We had a car with a Botosani registration number. This is why we couldn?t have gas from the stations in Bucharest; if we managed, it was with great difficulty. Because we were from Botosani, they?d only give us 11 liters of gas. Obviously we couldn?t make it home with 11 liters, all the way up north. So we begged them to give us more, cause Botosani is far away and we have to go home. We waited in line several times in order to get as much gas as was necessary for us to drive all the way home. (I. C. M., 165)

GIFT 

As gift, one could receive chocolate, coffee, ?Lux? or ?Rexona? soap, a packet of cigarettes ?Kent?. If one gave away a carton of Kent cigarettes, this was already a bribe with which one could even obtain approval for lodgings. If you got a foreign chocolate, you did not eat it, but you would give it as a present, in your turn, just to make good impression. Then, we would also give flowers, a shirt, fabrics for dresses etc. Flowers were not very expensive. This is what people in Bucharest gave, first a foremost flowers. At the countryside, one would not really give presents. In a more elitist circle, one would give books, albums, but less than the others. There were no deodorants. A ?Fa? deodorant meant great luxury. People who did not have connections abroad could not get it from anywhere else. (A.-I. B., 34)

It is true that the system with participation lists worked only for the first grades. This happened pretty much like this: with about a month before the end of the school year, a more active mother of the parents? committee decided the sum with which each had to contribute, in order to get the equivalent of the pre-established present (exclusively imported products ? a big bottle of perfume, a big make-up set, a set of at least silver jewelry, a decorative crystal vase, a porcelain table set, etc.).