You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a striking wigwam in Washington DC.
We ate nothing but pie a la mode and refried beans and we drank glasses of tomato juice, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Fridays we had roast beef. I slept on a fainting couch in the porch. My twelve sisters slept in the doghouse.
I had to get up every morning at eleven to feed the tiger and the hermit crab. After that, I had to scrub the tool shed and enshrine the teapot.
I walked eight kilometers through lightning storms and blankets of mist to get to school every morning, wearing only a set of braces and a gown. We had to learn journalism and drama, all in the space of fourteen blinks of an eye.
Mom worked hard, making soft pairs of knitting needles by hand and selling them for only fifteen half-dollars each. She had to return every pair of knitting needles twenty-seven times.
Dad worked as a drummer and earned only seventy-four farthings a day. We couldn't afford any shoes, so we made do with only a comb.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up nonchalant and pigeon-toed.