They too were distributed on IDs. If you did not belong with that particular center, you waited in vain. If you wanted to have two gas cylinders filled up, you had to bring one more member of your family to stand in the line with you.

My daughter-in-law was an operator at Competrol and registered orders. As a rule, the gas cylinder was sent two or three days later. But to me it came one week later, ?cause Aurica, the deliveryman, told me brazen-facedly, Don?t you worry, your daughter-in-law works at Competrol, you can always make another order. And Aurica had his clients ? old, sick men ? and he took my gas cylinder to their houses, cause they paid him extra for that. The gas cylinder cost 15 lei and he got 30 for one. Sometimes he brought them only half filled: don?t worry, you?ll make another order. The full cylinder I?d ordered he took to another, and that person?s half used cylinder he brought to me, but I paid the full price for it! (M. V., 156)

There was true wrestling in the lines for gas cylinders. There was a time when you could practically die in there. I for one was almost in for it once. When the truck came to unload the goods, all previous priority lists were ignored and people crowded in, trampling on one another?s feet, for fear someone else might steal their gas cylinder from under their nose. There was such an ambush that you could well fear for your clothes. That was because there were never enough gas cylinders. If you waited in the queue, you paid 41 lei for one cylinder, but you could pay 60 and spared yourself an ambuscade. (M. C., 61)

Lines were already formed the night before. People put their names on some lists if they wanted to go away and then come back; or else they left word with their neighbors, placed stones in their stead, or marked the gas cylinders. Those who lived nearby came to stand in the queue even if they didn?t really need a gas cylinder, and then sold their place to those who did need one for 15 or 20 lei. One gas cylinder cost about 35000 lei. (M. A., 113)

We had a neighbor, who did not have a Bucharest ID, and therefore he didn?t have a right to a gas cylinder, so that he either paid more for it to people who dealt with illegal trading, or asked us to buy one for him. But he had to keep away from another neighbor of ours who liked to tell on people. Whenever he saw something he thought suspicious, he went straight to the militia station or to the district town hall, or to the Gas Cylinder Center and denounced both the traffickers and my neighbor whom he hated sincerely. If he was proved right, the criminals were punished, either in administrative terms, or by annulment of the work contract. (M. A., 91)