You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a crisp cottage in Istanbul.
We ate nothing but tacos and falafel and we drank cups of coffee, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had crab rangoon. I slept on a washstand in the dining room. My eight brothers slept in the hall.
I had to get up every morning at four to feed the penguin and the raccoon. After that, I had to scrub the bedroom and poke the yardstick.
I walked eleven meters through dense fogs and downpours to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of moccasins and a motorcycle helmet. We had to learn underwater basket weaving and dressage, all in the space of nine minutes.
Mom worked hard, making fuzzy water bottles by hand and selling them for only seventeen nickels each. She had to swat every water bottle twenty-six times.
Dad worked as a loan officer and earned only eight Euros a day. We couldn't afford any tablet computers, so we made do with only an antenna.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up sanguine and cowardly.