Queues were everythere, an obligatory element of the landscape in each bigger cities. There wasn't anything in shops and people were waiting until something was ''thrown'' and they ''got'' some goods.
They were standing in one queue, then in another one, all families were in the queues. One family member replaced another one. People were standing in the queues for such trivial things like matches or toilet paper and of course for food.I and other children, stood in the queues until our parents came back from work and let us go home.We did our homework, learnt knitting or embroidery, played cards. Thanks to the queues I learnt playing Bridge even though I am not a science mind.
Such dialogues were heard everythere:
-''Pani tu nie stała! (''You haven't been standing here'')
-Stałam, moja Mała (''I have been standing here, my Little)
-Ja pani, nie widziałam (I haven't seen you)
-Inną czapkę wtedy miałam (I had another cap then''
These are not extracts from a book, or fragments of a cabaret...These are my memories.
Sometimes there were so called ''social lists of the queue'', where some goods were announced to be in few days and people signed a list. The ''queue commitee'' read aloud the family names from the list and everyone had to be present. Otherwise, he lost the chance for buying something attractive.
Some people were standing all day and night to buy a TV set or a carpet. Once I also took part in such ''hunting''. Only few sets of furniture arrived in Warsaw. The furniture was white and red and I really liked them. Very modern and not typical design for such times. The name of the set was CDN.
Now we can buy such furniture in almost every shop, but in PRL it was something special.
I was a child and I was standing for furniture to my room. Some people may say that it was not fair but I think it was a real experience of PRL, a true lesson of these times.
