I mention all this to emphasize that my mother would have never dreamed of accusing the Papases of theft, had it not been for the fact that the stolen object was a Coca-Cola can. At the time, these were an extremely rare sight. Even rarer was the knowledge of their function.
They were markers of social status: if people happened to own a can, they would show it off by exhibiting it in their living room, usually on an embroidered tablecloth over the television or the radio, often right next to the photo of Enver Hoxha. Without the Coca-Cola can, our houses looked the same. They were painted the same colour; they had the same furniture. With the Coca-Cola can, something changed, and not just visually. Envy came between us. Doubts started to emerge.
Trust was broken.
From Lea Ypi’s biography about her childhood in Albania.