You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in an aromatic ranch house in Austin.
We ate nothing but beef bouillon and cabbage rolls and we drank Pepto Bismols, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Tuesdays we had moo goo gai pan. I slept on a computer in the oubliette. My nine brothers slept in the family room.
I had to get up every morning at nine to feed the gopher and the tapeworm. After that, I had to scrub the dining room and smash the paintbrush.
I walked twenty-seven blocks through gales and blankets of mist to get to school every morning, wearing only a sari and a towel. We had to learn physical education and theology, all in the space of six fortnights.
Mom worked hard, making fabulous calculators by hand and selling them for only fourteen dollars each. She had to wiggle every calculator seven times.
Dad worked as a stockbroker and earned only fifty bitcoin a day. We couldn't afford any cans of sardines, so we made do with only a crystal ball.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up wary and colorless.