Once upon a time, it must have been nightmare-inducing to be a child in the USSR...
...not to mention depressing to be a housewife...
...and deeply uncomfortable even to be a person who uses furniture.I have tragic visions of Irina taking a leaking box of acrid, toxic detergent from one of those flimsy cupboards, getting ready to use her state-of-the-art 1978 Volga9000 wringer/washer; nearby (all too nearby) husband Vlad perches miserably on the unstable, flat-seated stool at the wobbly kitchen table-ette, drinking ersatz SovTea ("now with 50% fewer twigs!") and little Svetlana frets on the scratchy upholstery of the thankless sofa set, dubiously trying to play with a hard plastic google-eyed "toy." Good times...
After prolonged exposure to said toxic detergent (not to mention acrid husband Vlad), Irina decides to save little Svetlana from a future life of Soviet drudgery. She runs the dear child through the Volga9000 wringer. Nicely flattened, folded and stuffed in an envelope, Svetlana is mailed to Irina's cousins in Brighton Beach. Upon her US arrival (with postage due), Svetlana is promptly revivified with a few stokes of the bicycle pump and forced to earn her keep as a Vodka Bunny at the local social club in Little Odessa.
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