| Letters and Diary Fiction posted May 11, 2020 | Chapters: |
...34 35 -36- 37... 
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Day 35
A chapter in the book The Corona saga
The art of staying in line
by Iza Deleanu
| Background I decided to document how this virus is affecting my sanity. So feel free to join me in this experience, I hope the reading will become funnier, then what I posted so far. Thank you for reading. |
April 20, 2020
Day 35
Today I am going to talk about a new, that's become the norm, phenomenon during the Coronella time: the game of staying in line aligned to do your grocery shopping, electronic and even clothing. For the western world, this is new, for me this trick it's old! I got 44 years of experience in this line of business.
In communism time, because of the scarcity of finding certain products such as: meat, bread, milk, yogurt, exotic fruits, we had to use coupons that allowed us to get some daily and monthly ratios. Those coupons were functioning as a train ticket, you got your stuff they cut the day from that piece of paper. Yup, it got that days and month on it. So, you got one for the entire year with how many people in the family, address etc. If you lost it, you went hungry because there was no replacement until the next year. You want to experience this first hand, just take a trip to Cuba and visit their grocery stores...
We were a family of four, so we got the right to buy two breads (daily); once a month we got 1 kg of sugar and 1 liter of oil. For the dairy products, I remember as a child, the lines from 3 am to catch some milk, cheese or yogurt. The limit was of 4 yogurts, 2 bottles of milk and 1 kg of cheese. Those were in theory available everyday, but if you were not among the first ones in the queue you could've said good bye to these nutritious products.
You were there 3 am waiting for the products to arrive at 5 am. The way it worked was: move your bottles and jars (for yogurts) brother. You leave your bag with the bottles and jars inside, in the queue, and when the car arrived the dance of the bottles began.
I can't complain, my parents were leaving us to those lines and we as good kids were buying and bringing those products at home, and then prepared to go to school. A work shift for my mom was starting at 4 am so she needed our help for this endeavour. She was hauling us to the store every morning. We were lucky, because we were living relatively close to those stores, so we were never late at school.
The exotic fruits such as grapefruit, bananas, limes, oranges and tangerines, were at the time as, the hand sanitizers, masks and the toilet paper in Coronella time, hot commodities. We got all the other non-exotic fruits, that were growing in Romania available in their respective seasons.
The exotic ones, we had them once a year at Christmas, and for them you had to wait like 3 days in a row to get them. Then, the same way as now, there where people in key points that had access to those products, and a real exchange was happening, in the background, on the black market. Meat for bread, oranges for sugar etc.
My father was working in the chemical industry, we were lucky, he could give some substances that were used to make home soap for food. You could live very well if you had somebody in the food industry, or very poor if you didn't. Again, I was lucky, my dad was our family hero, we didn't miss a thing as kids.
Since Coronella hit Canada, at the beginning I was amused seeing that I must wait in line to get inside the store. Then my smile disappeared when I saw the sign for certain food items with the sign only 2 items per person. See you can get around and get more if you go out from the store and come back. If you really want to control this, just take a quick trip to a communist country and print some coupons per family. I guess this will be a real chance to get a real feel of the socialism: we are all equal: so 2 items per person it's right and it must go with a coupon/ card that you got them.
Let's take a step back and judge: Coronella started in a communist country: people are used to obey the government and no problem with the lock down. It moved to the western world and here hit the disaster point: human rights! I have the right to gather, the right to practice my religion, access to food and water supply etc.
Coronella said: I will teach you guys a lesson in how to restrain yourself and your governments how to be authoritarian and force you to follow the rules and screw your human and civil rights. You wanna jog? Do it in your own damn living room: the new sport is called jogging on the spot! Teach your dog to do the cat thing and so on!
Thank you Coronella, I really appreciate the reminder from where I come. I am a proud and trained survivalist and have no problem to navigating your stupidity!
Day 35
Today I am going to talk about a new, that's become the norm, phenomenon during the Coronella time: the game of staying in line aligned to do your grocery shopping, electronic and even clothing. For the western world, this is new, for me this trick it's old! I got 44 years of experience in this line of business.
In communism time, because of the scarcity of finding certain products such as: meat, bread, milk, yogurt, exotic fruits, we had to use coupons that allowed us to get some daily and monthly ratios. Those coupons were functioning as a train ticket, you got your stuff they cut the day from that piece of paper. Yup, it got that days and month on it. So, you got one for the entire year with how many people in the family, address etc. If you lost it, you went hungry because there was no replacement until the next year. You want to experience this first hand, just take a trip to Cuba and visit their grocery stores...
We were a family of four, so we got the right to buy two breads (daily); once a month we got 1 kg of sugar and 1 liter of oil. For the dairy products, I remember as a child, the lines from 3 am to catch some milk, cheese or yogurt. The limit was of 4 yogurts, 2 bottles of milk and 1 kg of cheese. Those were in theory available everyday, but if you were not among the first ones in the queue you could've said good bye to these nutritious products.
You were there 3 am waiting for the products to arrive at 5 am. The way it worked was: move your bottles and jars (for yogurts) brother. You leave your bag with the bottles and jars inside, in the queue, and when the car arrived the dance of the bottles began.
I can't complain, my parents were leaving us to those lines and we as good kids were buying and bringing those products at home, and then prepared to go to school. A work shift for my mom was starting at 4 am so she needed our help for this endeavour. She was hauling us to the store every morning. We were lucky, because we were living relatively close to those stores, so we were never late at school.
The exotic fruits such as grapefruit, bananas, limes, oranges and tangerines, were at the time as, the hand sanitizers, masks and the toilet paper in Coronella time, hot commodities. We got all the other non-exotic fruits, that were growing in Romania available in their respective seasons.
The exotic ones, we had them once a year at Christmas, and for them you had to wait like 3 days in a row to get them. Then, the same way as now, there where people in key points that had access to those products, and a real exchange was happening, in the background, on the black market. Meat for bread, oranges for sugar etc.
My father was working in the chemical industry, we were lucky, he could give some substances that were used to make home soap for food. You could live very well if you had somebody in the food industry, or very poor if you didn't. Again, I was lucky, my dad was our family hero, we didn't miss a thing as kids.
Since Coronella hit Canada, at the beginning I was amused seeing that I must wait in line to get inside the store. Then my smile disappeared when I saw the sign for certain food items with the sign only 2 items per person. See you can get around and get more if you go out from the store and come back. If you really want to control this, just take a quick trip to a communist country and print some coupons per family. I guess this will be a real chance to get a real feel of the socialism: we are all equal: so 2 items per person it's right and it must go with a coupon/ card that you got them.
Let's take a step back and judge: Coronella started in a communist country: people are used to obey the government and no problem with the lock down. It moved to the western world and here hit the disaster point: human rights! I have the right to gather, the right to practice my religion, access to food and water supply etc.
Coronella said: I will teach you guys a lesson in how to restrain yourself and your governments how to be authoritarian and force you to follow the rules and screw your human and civil rights. You wanna jog? Do it in your own damn living room: the new sport is called jogging on the spot! Teach your dog to do the cat thing and so on!
Thank you Coronella, I really appreciate the reminder from where I come. I am a proud and trained survivalist and have no problem to navigating your stupidity!
I am using Coronella instead of Corona, I think sounds funnier:)
For my readers and reviewers, please forgive me for my bad English, since is my third language, I am using this cheap excuse to ask for your help in correcting the grammar and the other mistakes
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and 2 member cents. For my readers and reviewers, please forgive me for my bad English, since is my third language, I am using this cheap excuse to ask for your help in correcting the grammar and the other mistakes
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