Every conversation was sprinkled with words like “Panasonic,” “Sony,” “Philips”…I ran into my neighbor: “I’m embarrassed that I’m so excited because of a German coffee grinder…but I’m just so happy!” It had only been moments ago—just a moment ago—that she’d spent the night waiting in line to get her hands on a volume of Akhmatova. Now she was head over heels for a coffee grinder. Some piece of junk…People threw away their Party membership cards like they were just trash. It was hard to believe…The whole world had transformed in a matter of days.
