You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a broken barracks in Portland.
We ate nothing but country glazed ham and roast turkey and we drank lattes, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Thursdays we had chocolate-covered ants. I slept on a wooden crate in the bathroom. My eight brothers slept in the ballroom.
I had to get up every morning at three to feed the Dalmatian and the lemur. After that, I had to scrub the laundry room and forget the clothespin.
I walked thirty meters through sleet storms and floods to get to school every morning, wearing only a gladiator helmet and a false beard. We had to learn genetics and evolutionary biology, all in the space of fourteen lifetimes.
Mom worked hard, making unusual beach balls by hand and selling them for only five dimes each. She had to hack every beach ball nineteen times.
Dad worked as an actor and earned only forty-two crowns a day. We couldn't afford any combs, so we made do with only a flashlight.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up precocious and megalomaniacal.