Towel. Story

Фото: Depositphotos

They said to bring a towel to kindergarten tomorrow. Well, such a normal request. In the Moscow kindergarten, however, there were state-owned towels, but here you are not there. However, we, unfortunately, moved, and where to take a baby or a small towel, it was crazy not to apply. Around bags and boxes. And because she gave the baby with what it was: small and adult, heavy, gray. I also thought that they would say that these Russians do not have their own towels for the child to wipe their hands and face.

I also remembered that in one of the endless questionnaires that I filled out in front of the kindergarten, there were just questions - did your child have a favorite toy, favorite clothes, favorite towel. We, it turns out that no. We are communists, of course. Everything is common.

And they also said lunch with them to give - what will you give, such a child and lunch. This is not a Russian kindergarten for you, where the first, second, fifth, tenth are hot and dietary. Here you are here. For breakfast, they give gosdepovskie cookies with jam, which, in order not to choke, you need to drink a sweet soda. And lunch from home. Ready-made lunches are even sold in stores. Four sections in a box: chicken nuggets, makaroshki with cheese sauce, canned corn and chocolate mass. Lunch is called "Become Fat and Cover with Allergies."

If you do not want, cook your own lunch. But it must be put somewhere. Not in the pan the same cutlets with mashed potatoes carry. But when you are moving, it’s not at all special lunchboxes where American moms put this dinner. Therefore, I put the daytime meal for the babe into the first transparent box, which I then threw in a plastic bag, threw a banana on top. Well, I think they will say - in general, of course, poverty. No boxing. To heaps somewhere socks all her gone, and at the same time and shoes. And she walks with me in the same dirty socks and crocs - beach rubber boots. Especially in the rain is convenient, they are in the hole. And I also go in the same. The picture of large-scale poverty and complete social distress.

It's like in the 80-ies in the New York bureau, a tassovets worked, who didn’t pay much attention to his appearance, but worked hard like a Tunisian camel. And he drove home after work late at night in the subway and dozed off from fatigue. The American cop comes up to him and offers to go overnight to the bomzhatnik “not far from here,” since such persons are not supposed to sleep in the subway. A proud tassovets prioksilis and replies that he, for a moment, a Soviet journalist. And the American policeman, of course, does not believe, because in the States journalists look different, they return home by car with big wheels, sleep at home on a king-size bed and embrace a skinny fitness wife.

Therefore, a cop asked our correspondent to show his ID, that is, his driver's license. The car, of course, tassovtsa never had rights, too. But there was an American bank card - a rumpled yellow cardboard. She could barely see his name and place of work, but without a photo. The cop looked at the card, at the journalist, at the card, at the journalist, frowned severely and asked:

- Why aren't you striking?
“Why,” the tassovian wonders.
- Yes, look what you commies brought to - looks like a real piece of shit! - spat and went to read the Wall Street Journal.

Well, and we went to the kindergarten. In the morning, she read the Wall Street Journal, brushed the child with her hand, shoved in a towel, and sent the bag to the great. Pre-key - it means the younger group. There is another Kei - the next year, and then immediately school. And twelve years the strap pull.

A couple of days pass, it is Friday, they return the towel to us. Yeah, I think - to wash so. And on Monday I give her another towel, more like a child’s one — tiny, thin and fun, striped. Over the weekend, I bought a lunch box and I even found a clean pair of socks. Croxes, however, the same, comb yet. I still cannot find scissors to mow the child's nails, under which the black soil of the Russian central zone rests. Sad, of course. Well, something will think about us again. And here I take it from the garden on Monday. A happy little girl runs out, hands me our tiny towel.

“Why,” I ask. - Until Friday is still far away. Give it back.
“Well, okay,” she agrees. Runs away and returns to the teacher a towel, more like a napkin.

That puzzled takes it back and puts it on the shelf.
We are going home. I ask the child:
- Did you take the towel yourself or did you return it?
- Returned.
I have a bad feeling.
- Почему?
- Legs are visible and pens too.
- In a sense, visible? Where are visible? What does the legs and a towel?
- Because the towel is small. Very small.
- Well, small. Not enough, or what?
“Not enough,” sighs sadly.
- Well, how is it missing? Wiped hands, face too ... You also
wipe your feet, or what?
- No, we do not wipe the legs.
- Well, what have the legs?
- They are visible.
- God, where are visible? Tell me, are you wiping with a towel or what?
- Нет.
- And what do you wipe?
- Paper towels.
- Ta-a-ak ... And with a real, soft towel from the house, what are you
do?
“Mom,” he says so strictly, “we cover ourselves.” When we sleep.
- Towel ?! Like a blanket?
- Yes!

And then I remembered the look of the teacher, to whom we returned today a towel. Under which the legs and handles are visible. My poor, dirty, unkempt child. Now just think that we are poor commies. Who do not strike. Although, on the other hand, it is a question of who is a beggar. They would have covered themselves with a newspaper. The Wall Street Journal.

Today in the kindergarten I carried a terry sheet. To know ours.

Stories collected in the book "Blues, chamomile, oranges", - sad, touching, funny and philosophical at the same time. Natalya Slavina does not invent stories, but only masterfully shares with readers observations of herself, loved ones and those around her. Readers are attracted by her sincerity, self-irony, light style, and often unexpected endings, as happens in real life.

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