You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a soft mansion in Japan.
We ate nothing but prime rib and ham and we drank glasses of buttermilk, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on alternate blue moons we had bonbons. I slept on a recliner in the closet. My twelve sisters slept in the outhouse.
I had to get up every morning at twelve to feed the boa constrictor and the gerbil. After that, I had to scrub the basement and paint the Happy Meal.
I walked thirty-five centimeters through blankets of mist and thunderstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a moustache and a pair of jeans. We had to learn horticulture and Chinese, all in the space of sixteen fortnights.
Mom worked hard, making burned wastebaskets by hand and selling them for only four shillings each. She had to abuse every wastebasket eleven times.
Dad worked as a beekeeper and earned only twenty stock options a day. We couldn't afford any egg shells, so we made do with only a fire hose.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up precocious and ungainly.