The Stash

This proverb (previously mentioned) also makes me think of our bathroom when I was young. The book I read it in (complete with folky drawings) was often left there, perhaps on the white hamper. An American child growing up in early '90s Moscow, I didn't realize how funny our little bathroom was. The sink was in a different room. The toilet didn't flush the same way. And on the shelf above it, hidden behind a curtain of fake lace, were stacks and stacks of toilet paper. Toilet paper was hard to find then, so we often brought it back with us after trips outside the country.

It was the same with milk. Whenever it appeared at Stockmanns, the Finnish supermarket, we would buy several cartons and freeze some.

There is nothing appetizing about watery milk with thin slices of ice.