You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a fabulous brownstone in Fort Worth.
We ate nothing but hamburgers and borscht and we drank Pepto Bismols, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had egg rolls. I slept on a bathtub in the hall. My twelve sisters slept in the pantry.
I had to get up every morning at eight to feed the mole and the cat. After that, I had to scrub the bathroom and maintain the bedpan.
I walked twenty-three yards through drought and downpours to get to school every morning, wearing only a belt and a set of braces. We had to learn Egyptology and hotel management, all in the space of one century.
Mom worked hard, making brightly-colored bugles by hand and selling them for only sixteen farthings each. She had to unfasten every bugle twenty-two times.
Dad worked as a jailer and earned only fifty-one pennies a day. We couldn't afford any urns, so we made do with only an oriental vase.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up polite and urbane.