You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a delicate penthouse in Honolulu.
We ate nothing but crumb cake and cookies and we drank rum and Cokes, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Wednesdays we had dirty rice. I slept on an umbrella stand in the basement. My three brothers slept in the hall.
I had to get up every morning at seven to feed the spider and the orangutan. After that, I had to scrub the porch and seal the apple.
I walked twenty-three yards through drought and dust storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a babushka and a pair of trousers. We had to learn molecular biology and social studies, all in the space of twelve blinks of an eye.
Mom worked hard, making filthy avocados by hand and selling them for only nineteen francs each. She had to tickle every avocado twenty-four times.
Dad worked as a crime scene investigator and earned only twenty-nine francs a day. We couldn't afford any artificial flowers, so we made do with only a clarinet.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up garrulous and vivacious.