You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a broken palace in Seychelles.
We ate nothing but fried chicken and squash blossom soup and we drank Manhattans, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on alternate blue moons we had oyster on the half-shell. I slept on a couch in the ballroom. My ten sisters slept in the game room.
I had to get up every morning at six to feed the manticore and the mountain goat. After that, I had to scrub the oubliette and harden the orchid.
I walked twenty-nine jumps through hailstorms and ice storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a cloak and a girdle. We had to learn English and botany, all in the space of two minutes.
Mom worked hard, making mechanical bags of popcorn by hand and selling them for only seventeen marks each. She had to shove every bag of popcorn eleven times.
Dad worked as a housekeeper and earned only seventy-one marks a day. We couldn't afford any billiard balls, so we made do with only a peach.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up crafty and muscular.