At noon, after feeding her grandson, Mei's mother rushed back to work. After putting her grandson to sleep, Mei's grandmother sat down to eat with everyone.
"Sister Sun, you look like something's wrong today?" Zhao Hongmei noticed that Grandma Mei was sighing even while eating, and she was a little worried. What could have happened to their family?
“Yes, Sister Sun, you’ve sighed several times today. What’s wrong? Tell us, maybe we can give you some advice.” Wu Xiaohua also looked at Grandma Mei with concern.
"Um...it's nothing." Grandma Mei noticed that everyone was looking at her and knew that now was a good opportunity to borrow the tickets.
Grandma Mei: Why can't I just ask? I can't borrow any these next few days, and in a couple of days they'll start making clothes, and then I won't have a single ticket left.
“You’re mumbling like that, something’s definitely wrong! Old Sun, if you have something on your mind, just say it. Whenever we need something, you’ve always helped us. Now that you’re in trouble, you can’t just not tell us.” Zhou Hua, who was the same age as Grandma Mei, could tell at a glance that Grandma Mei was being disingenuous. Grandma Mei’s expression clearly showed that something was wrong.
"Tell me quickly, Sister Sun, don't be shy. We've been sisters for so many years." Zhang Guihua also sensed that Grandma Mei had something on her mind, but was just too embarrassed to speak up.
"I'm really embarrassed. I haven't borrowed anything from anyone in all these years. This time... this time it's because of my son, his colleague... so I was thinking of seeing if any of you have any extra cloth coupons to lend me some. It's almost New Year's, and the three little ones in the family need to have some new clothes." Grandma Mei said awkwardly.
"Hey! I thought something serious had happened, but it turns out it's just about borrowing some cloth coupons. I don't have many, but I can spare five feet of cloth coupons." Zhou Hua was worried that something terrible had happened to Grandma Mei's family, but it turned out to be just about borrowing some cloth coupons.
“I have four feet of cloth here.”
“I have six feet here.”
"I……"
"That's enough, that's enough. We don't need that many. Just make one set for each child." Grandma Mei was almost moved to tears.
"Don't be like that. If you're going to do it, your whole family has to make one. The kids need a whole outfit, and the adults need a shirt." Zhou Hua thought that Grandma Mei's family wasn't large, so they could manage to scrape together enough shirts for each of the three adults.
“That’s right, wear an old pair of pants to tide you over, but you need to wear a new shirt.” Zhao Hongmei nodded in agreement with Sister Zhou’s statement.
“Sister Sun has helped us so many times before, what’s a little bit of cloth ration coupons?” Wu Xiaohua planned to make one less set of clothes for her third son during the New Year.
"Adults don't really need it. We make them every year. I've only worn the ones made last year a few times, and they're still like new." Grandma Mei felt that these colleagues all had many children, and if she lent them cloth coupons, someone would definitely be short of a pair of pants or something. That wouldn't do; they would be blamed later.
"Sister Sun, it's rare for you to ask, so why don't you give us a chance to show our talents?" Zhang Guihua said with a smile.
“You have so many children in your family, how can you give all the tickets to me? Xiaohua, your third son is about to find a partner, he can’t go without new clothes. And Guihua, your second daughter is getting married after the New Year, right? You need to make her a couple more outfits so that her in-laws won’t look down on her.”
"Sister Sun, don't worry! I know what I'm doing." Wu Xiaohua waved her hand, not realizing that her son wouldn't be able to find a partner if he didn't have a set of clothes.
"My second daughter's clothes were made a long time ago, and these are just for my own use." Zhang Guihua's in-laws are well-off this time. Once the wedding date was set, they had their son deliver the cloth coupons that her daughter needed.
At noon, Mei's mother and Mei's grandmother discussed it and agreed that Mei's grandmother would borrow some first, and if it wasn't enough, Mei's mother would borrow from her colleagues.
After all, most of the women in Mei Ma's factory were young wives around her age, so very few of them had any say in things like cloth ration coupons.
When Mei's father was having lunch, he privately asked a few of his close colleagues, and it turned out that Brother Xu had indeed borrowed tickets from them.
"So, Brother Xu finally asked you for money? How much did you borrow?" someone asked curiously.
"I only borrowed one pound of meat coupons, and when I brought it home, my wife pinched it until it turned purple." Zheng Chenggang felt a pain in the inside of his thigh just thinking about how it felt.
"That's...that cruel?!" Mei's father rubbed his thigh and decided that he must prepare water for his wife to wash her feet when he got home.
"Is that considered ruthless? I lent half a jin of grain coupons to Brother Xu a while ago, and my wife made me kneel on a washboard all night." Xia Guiguo looked at Zheng Chenggang with envy, thinking that his wife was really gentle to him.
"So that's why you were limping those days, it turns out you were kneeling on the washboard!" Zheng Chenggang grabbed Xia Guiguo's hand as if he had found his people.
"Hey! Culture, what did you borrow from Brother Xu?" Zheng Chenggang asked curiously.
"...Cloth ration coupons." Mei's father hesitated, wondering whether he should tell them that he hadn't been punished by his wife.
"How much did you borrow?"
"Yeah, how much did Brother Xu borrow from you? We were just wondering why he never asked you for money, since you're the closest of friends with Brother Xu."
"I...I've lent out all the cloth coupons in the house." Mei's father felt a little depressed when he thought about it. He had a feeling that Brother Xu probably wouldn't be able to pay back the cloth coupons before the end of the year.
"What? Are you a tiger?"
"How did you get the cloth coupons? I just lent out what I had in my pocket."
"That's right, my mom keeps all the cloth coupons in my family. Do you think your mom would give them to you?"
"I... I kept all the tickets in the cabinet, so I just went and got them." Looking back now, Mei's dad realizes he was a bit reckless; why did he take them all out?
Keeping half is fine too!
"Brother, you must have suffered last night?" Zheng Chenggang patted Mei's father on the shoulder, looking at him with sympathy.
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