I wish Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani were with me the last time I “shopped” at a state-run grocery store.

But the frontrunning 33-year-old New York mayoral candidate, who has shaken up Democratic national politics, was not even born then.

So, he has no idea what he is talking about even as he has promised — among other whacky things — that, if elected, he would establish city-run grocery stores in New York, thus turning the city into Tirana, Albania under the communists.

I put shopping in quotes for good reason, because it ended up more like begging or demanding than shopping in the then-called People’s Socialist Republic of Albania, a communist police state. A workers’ socialist paradise it was not.

There were few stores to begin with, and the few that there were had little to sell, unless you were a Communist Party boss. They ruled.

It was in the late 1980’s when I became the first American reporter to visit the closed country in 30 years. Enver Hoxha, the paranoid communist dictator who ran the country like it was North Korea, had just died, so I was able to work my way in.

It was still a communist dictatorship under Ramiz Alia, his successor. Nobody could get in and nobody could get out. The state ran everything, including misnamed grocery or department stores, which were the thing.

While the country today is one big traffic jam, back then there was no traffic because there were no cars. The government banned private ownership of cars and the only people who had them were important Communist Party officials.

There were no tourists, and no bars, restaurants or cafes either. And the few visitors who came to the country were mainly from Eastern Bloc communist countries.

Anyway, I was in the country on a second visit in 1987 thinking how I could put together a book about the possibility of democratic changes following the death of Hoxha.

Swissair flew into an empty Tirana airport once a week.  Then it went on to Libya before returning to Zurich.

On this occasion it left Tirana for Libya with my luggage still on board. Which meant, other than my carry on, I had nothing with me. The plane would not come around for another week and I was stuck with the clothes I was wearing.

And it was August, hot in a country that had no idea that air conditioning had been invented. And I had no fresh underwear, or anything else.

Not to worry, though, my communist minder told me when we got to the hotel in Tirana. We will get you some underwear.

He took me to an empty state-run grocery/department store where the people around marveled to see an American. I marveled back when I saw rows of empty shelves. There was nothing to buy.

But they had some material that looked like underwear that the clerk came up with after my communist minder uttered a few quiet but effective words to her.

The underwear was nothing like my Fruit of the Loom boxer shorts that were now in Libya. These were white, ballooning, one size fits all cotton unisex underpants that were way too big for me. And they had no drawstrings.  They looked like they should be catching wind on a sailboat.

“I can’t wear these,” I said. “They’ll fall down. They have no strings.”

“You have to,” my minder said. “That’s all there is. Everybody wears them. Maybe more will come in from Turkey next week. Maybe not.”

“Let’s go to another store.”

“There is no other store.”

“You mean in all of Tirana, this socialist workers’ paradise, there is no other store to buy underwear? Just this state store? One shop socialism?”.

“Correct. Everyone comes here.”

“Except the party bosses,” I said. “They get their underwear shipped in from Italy.”

“That is America bourgeois propaganda. Under socialism everyone is treated equally.”

“Yeah, equally bad,” I said. He frowned, I fumed.

I took the underwear. Then I spent a week holding them up as I searched vainly for safety pins while waiting for Swissair to return with my luggage and very-much-missed Fruit of the Looms.

It is hard to be taken seriously when your underwear is falling down.

It was socialism at work.

Maybe Mamdani’s state run stores will be better stocked.

Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com