You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a funny Victorian mansion in Sapporo.
We ate nothing but smoked salmon and bonbons and we drank cups of espresso, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on alternate blue moons we had enchiladas. I slept on a bed in the master bedroom. My six brothers slept in the foyer.
I had to get up every morning at eight to feed the polecat and the worm. After that, I had to scrub the salon and categorize the picture.
I walked twenty-three jumps through windy days and driving rainstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a cowboy hat and a motorcycle helmet. We had to learn programming and music theory, all in the space of twenty hours.
Mom worked hard, making leather fishing poles by hand and selling them for only eleven food stamps each. She had to load every fishing pole thirty times.
Dad worked as a food critic and earned only seventy-five ha'pennies a day. We couldn't afford any snails, so we made do with only an avocado.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up blubbery and enchanting.