You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a hideous duplex in Topeka.
We ate nothing but hamburgers and scrambled eggs and we drank cosmopolitans, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Thursdays we had sauerkraut. I slept on a washing machine in the bathroom. My ten brothers slept in the boudoir.
I had to get up every morning at eight to feed the mare and the Pekingese. After that, I had to scrub the conservatory and crack the dish.
I walked twenty-eight fathoms through lightning storms and dust storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a Panama hat and a pair of handcuffs. We had to learn herbalism and ciphering, all in the space of nine minutes.
Mom worked hard, making electronic bananas by hand and selling them for only fifteen quarters each. She had to overlook every banana eight times.
Dad worked as a poet and earned only twenty-one quarters a day. We couldn't afford any mushrooms, so we made do with only a trash can.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up pert and melancholic.