He pulled out his phone. The search history still glowed: grinzi lemn 10x10 6m pret dedeman .

“The old ones are seventy years old, boy. Wood was stronger then. Today’s 8x8 is yesterday’s 10. Trust me.” Gicu pulled out a wrinkled phone and typed. “8x8x6m. Forty-nine ninety-nine.”

“The roof held,” Andrei said.

Vasile stopped laughing. He looked at the beams, then at the roof. “Gicu, from the lumber aisle? Gray hair, missing a thumb?”

“I need two,” Andrei said. “But the price…”

On Saturday morning, he drove to the edge of the city. Dedeman rose from the industrial park like a blue-and-yellow cathedral of consumerism. The smell hit him first—sawdust, treated pine, and the cold breath of air conditioning over 10,000 items he couldn’t afford.

Andrei’s heart did a small cartwheel. 100 lei for both. He could eat rice for a week.

The Measure of a Man