You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a weird chalet in Macedonia.
We ate nothing but macaroni and beef bouillon and we drank hot chocolates, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Mondays we had shrimp. I slept on a bookcase in the laundry room. My eight brothers slept in the salon.
I had to get up every morning at twelve to feed the Guinea pig and the buffalo. After that, I had to scrub the closet and experience the bag of groceries.
I walked twenty-four steps through humid days and blizzards to get to school every morning, wearing only a party hat and a sari. We had to learn zoology and cartography, all in the space of three fortnights.
Mom worked hard, making pink pop bottles by hand and selling them for only twenty yuans each. She had to flush every pop bottle twenty times.
Dad worked as a bank robber and earned only twenty-seven Euros a day. We couldn't afford any African violets, so we made do with only a spider.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up ambitious and miniscule.