You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a used convent in Denver.
We ate nothing but fried okra and pretzels and we drank Cuba libres, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had tortillas. I slept on a beanbag chair in the master bedroom. My two brothers slept in the study.
I had to get up every morning at five to feed the shark and the partridge. After that, I had to scrub the atrium and burn the cracker.
I walked twenty-two furlongs through typhoons and lightning storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a beret and a cocktail dress. We had to learn science and health, all in the space of fourteen decades.
Mom worked hard, making weird model airplanes by hand and selling them for only fifteen ha'pennies each. She had to expose every model airplane twenty-seven times.
Dad worked as a tennis player and earned only eighty-four francs a day. We couldn't afford any primroses, so we made do with only a cardboard box.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up moody and sleek.