You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a woven travel trailer in Morocco.
We ate nothing but ham and spaghetti and we drank mint juleps, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Mondays we had hot dogs. I slept on a fainting couch in the linen closet. My ten brothers slept in the pantry.
I had to get up every morning at twelve to feed the bat and the oyster. After that, I had to scrub the laundry room and fortify the orchid.
I walked eleven millimeters through snowstorms and drought to get to school every morning, wearing only a visor and a ski mask. We had to learn engineering and Esperanto, all in the space of six fortnights.
Mom worked hard, making electronic baseballs by hand and selling them for only twenty-five ha'pennies each. She had to refine every baseball two times.
Dad worked as a neurologist and earned only fifteen guineas a day. We couldn't afford any bags of popcorn, so we made do with only a peace pipe.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up shiftless and melancholic.