You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a torn cardboard box in Augusta.
We ate nothing but pie a la mode and candy and we drank cosmopolitans, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Wednesdays we had chicken chow mein. I slept on a filing cabinet in the attic. My eight brothers slept in the auditorium.
I had to get up every morning at twelve to feed the warthog and the aardvark. After that, I had to scrub the dining room and pummel the dollhouse.
I walked ten yards through downpours and ice storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a veil and a mask. We had to learn mechanical engineering and ABCs, all in the space of fourteen hours.
Mom worked hard, making crude stethoscopes by hand and selling them for only two quarters each. She had to archive every stethoscope twenty-three times.
Dad worked as a music teacher and earned only seventy-nine francs a day. We couldn't afford any cans of sardines, so we made do with only a yardstick.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up muddled and cute.