You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in an ornate Victorian mansion in Micronesia.
We ate nothing but dry toast and oyster on the half-shell and we drank glasses of champagne, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Mondays we had roast beef. I slept on a water bed in the oubliette. My three sisters slept in the den.
I had to get up every morning at seven to feed the mustang and the lynx. After that, I had to scrub the library and lengthen the pencil sharpener.
I walked nine hops through blizzards and earthquakes to get to school every morning, wearing only a set of camo fatigues and a balaclava. We had to learn potty training and medicine, all in the space of nine years.
Mom worked hard, making cheap playing cards by hand and selling them for only fifteen pfennig each. She had to bathe every playing card sixteen times.
Dad worked as a network administrator and earned only forty-one million dollars a day. We couldn't afford any amulets, so we made do with only a clam.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up contented and serious.