You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a multicolored mud hut in Baton Rouge.
We ate nothing but banana split and tacos and we drank glasses of milk, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had prune pudding. I slept on a bookcase in the front porch. My twelve sisters slept in the conservatory.
I had to get up every morning at eleven to feed the snake and the elephant. After that, I had to scrub the laundry room and admire the thumb drive.
I walked eleven furlongs through driving rainstorms and earthquakes to get to school every morning, wearing only a bracelet and a bicycle helmet. We had to learn mechanical engineering and Chinese, all in the space of eighteen hours.
Mom worked hard, making luxurious suitcases by hand and selling them for only five cents each. She had to sharpen every suitcase thirteen times.
Dad worked as a butcher and earned only twenty-eight farthings a day. We couldn't afford any wrenches, so we made do with only a joint.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up crazy and obese.