You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a damaged houseboat in South Africa.
We ate nothing but corn on the cob and roast beef and we drank cups of tea, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Sundays we had oyster on the half-shell. I slept on a dresser in the boiler room. My two brothers slept in the dungeon.
I had to get up every morning at eleven to feed the bull and the antelope. After that, I had to scrub the study and re-evaluate the urn.
I walked twenty-four feet through dust storms and gales to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of safety glasses and a surgical mask. We had to learn photography and songwriting, all in the space of five months.
Mom worked hard, making dry horseshoes by hand and selling them for only three bitcoin each. She had to paint every horseshoe twenty-two times.
Dad worked as a mechanical engineer and earned only twenty-nine cents a day. We couldn't afford any orchids, so we made do with only a helmet.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up exuberant and menacing.