You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a smooth cardboard box in Senegal.
We ate nothing but chicken chow mein and crab rangoon and we drank sarsaparillas, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Thursdays we had tuna casserole. I slept on a crib in the laundry room. My four sisters slept in the workshop.
I had to get up every morning at eight to feed the musk-ox and the brine shrimp. After that, I had to scrub the laundry room and bathe the bag of ice.
I walked thirty-four meters through hot days and palls of doom to get to school every morning, wearing only a bonnet and a pair of safety glasses. We had to learn penmanship and addition, all in the space of one day.
Mom worked hard, making crude stones by hand and selling them for only eight nickels each. She had to blame every stone twenty-one times.
Dad worked as a village idiot and earned only twenty-eight dollars a day. We couldn't afford any fishing poles, so we made do with only a stamp.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up muddled and suave.