Please see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/science/earth/26charmin.html?_r=1&th&emc=th for further reading on the paper we use.
I guess it all depends on your perspective; I can remember being confused at seeing half-torn history notebooks in my first apartment in Kazakhstan. Then I figured out that was the "reserve supply." So if you were in dire need, and there was no real TP, feel free to take the section on the "Birth of a Nation: KZ" and do what needs to be done. So using single-ply over here really isn't that bad.
.jpg)
or...
Though buying the paper can be (incoming bad pun) a pain in the butt. Customer service in the CIS countries is very similar to what I've seen so far in Russia. That is, somewhere between
A) None at all, and
B) I forgot to smile sarcastically when I threw your small potatoes in the bag.
I had a conversation with some students recently who were all young managers in a large corporate office. We were doing a lesson on the inner mechanics of a company, so we had listed the deparments. Guess which one they forgot? Yep, customer relations. Upon being pressed on this issue, they contended that their medium-sized international pharmaceutical company had, indeed, one person to handle complaints somewhere in the company. It is still currently being disputed whether or not there is a second person helping out.
I went to the store yesterday to get some bread. Aside from the fact that хлеб is one of the most difficult words for me to pronounce (for reasons unknown), I still was bewildered by the experience. I think the dialogue went something like this:
Me - "Do you have bread today?"
Her - "What?"
Me - "Can I have a loaf of bread, please?"
Her - "What?"
Me - "Bread?"
Her - "Which?"
Me - (thinking of white or wheat bread) "Umm, white bread."
Her - "No, I mean, do you want a loaf or do you want bread?"
Me - "What?"
Her - "A loaf? Or bread?"
Me - "I'm sorry, I don't understand."
Her - "A LOAF?? Or BREAD??"
Me - "..."
Her - "Doooo yooouuuuuu want a LOOOAAF or dooo yoooou want BRRREEEAAAD???"
Me - "..."
Her - "Come back when you do understand."
I came back later. Turns out loaves are rounder. Bread is a loaf of bread that looks like, well, a loaf of bread. Maybe the reader loses something without seeing her patronizing gaze, or without wilting under the heat of her mocking and deriding tone, but still. I'm afraid to ask for bread. I now do without.
So I was sweating from the bread encounter. But I can't imagine that the men sitting outside chatting at 10 PM were hot. It was probably 0 degrees F outside, and two old guys were having a grand (sober) conversation outside the store, just sitting on the benches. I stood around and adjusted the groceries I was carrying (sans starches) so I could listen to them talk. The conversation had to do with Dinamo, one of the soccer teams in the area. They seemed so calm, and warm, very much unlike the shivering mass of ice that I felt like and resembled. I've noticed two types of people: those who notice the cold as much as they might notice a passing cloud, and those who, like me, run from location to location for fear of becoming of human popsicle. It's really not that cold, but the wind is bitter.
What's the trick? Do I need to be fatter? Or maybe live through a time period when people survive by burning furniture? Or what? Even in the States, I feel like you wouldn't have two or three blokes sit down in freezing weather, facing into the wind, for a catch-up convo about the latest comings and goings of the White Sox. Well, they might, but I feel as if there would have to be a little liquor behind the cold-weather bravery. Why choose to talk outside? Maybe I'll have to sit down with them soon and find out. Though first I'm going to have to learn to talk about sports... and I can barely do that in English.
