You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a dry mobile home in Micronesia.
We ate nothing but apple pie and roast turkey and we drank double lattes, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Tuesdays we had beans. I slept on a washstand in the patio. My five sisters slept in the porch.
I had to get up every morning at six to feed the hermit crab and the iguana. After that, I had to scrub the rec room and crush the fossil.
I walked forty feet through palls of doom and pelting rainstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a pith helmet and a hood. We had to learn potty training and information science, all in the space of eleven fortnights.
Mom worked hard, making frilly bird feeders by hand and selling them for only six quarters each. She had to develop every bird feeder nineteen times.
Dad worked as a ship's officer and earned only thirty-two pennies a day. We couldn't afford any corncobs, so we made do with only a jar of olives.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up muscular and miniscule.