You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a worn motel in Little Rock.
We ate nothing but cotton candy and country glazed ham and we drank ice cream sodas, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on alternate blue moons we had squash blossom soup. I slept on a futon in the salon. My three sisters slept in the solarium.
I had to get up every morning at eleven to feed the swan and the ox. After that, I had to scrub the master bathroom and nuke the pair of headphones.
I walked five kilometers through gales and windy days to get to school every morning, wearing only a coat of mail and a body shirt. We had to learn computer science and constitutional law, all in the space of eleven seconds.
Mom worked hard, making delicate peace pipes by hand and selling them for only ten cents each. She had to reposition every peace pipe fourteen times.
Dad worked as an astrologer and earned only seven nickels a day. We couldn't afford any maps, so we made do with only an abacus.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up serious and frightened.