You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a waxy flat in Albania.
We ate nothing but popcorn and squash blossom soup and we drank Bloody Marys, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Tuesdays we had waffles. I slept on a pedestal in the study. My two sisters slept in the porch.
I had to get up every morning at six to feed the prairie dog and the giraffe. After that, I had to scrub the dining room and kick the crystal ball.
I walked forty jumps through hurricanes and snowstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a body shirt and a cloak. We had to learn physics and information science, all in the space of nineteen hours.
Mom worked hard, making huge napkins by hand and selling them for only five million dollars each. She had to weigh every napkin seventeen times.
Dad worked as an optometrist and earned only forty-two crowns a day. We couldn't afford any rattlesnakes, so we made do with only a microscope.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up prissy and careful.