You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a cheap travel trailer in Berkeley.
We ate nothing but strawberry shortcake and tuna casserole and we drank Long Island iced teas, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Wednesdays we had egg salad sandwich. I slept on a mattress in the closet. My four sisters slept in the boiler room.
I had to get up every morning at six to feed the kitty and the beetle. After that, I had to scrub the garage and slice the duffel bag.
I walked eight steps through blizzards and ice storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of pantaloons and a set of braces. We had to learn government and physical education, all in the space of nineteen months.
Mom worked hard, making abnormal pinwheels by hand and selling them for only twenty-four half-dollars each. She had to nuke every pinwheel twelve times.
Dad worked as an elevator operator and earned only eighty-eight bitcoin a day. We couldn't afford any cans of sardines, so we made do with only a Bunsen burner.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up cantankerous and affable.