You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a crisp dugout in Athens.
We ate nothing but enchiladas and French fries and we drank cups of bouillon, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Wednesdays we had cornbread. I slept on a floor in the family room. My ten sisters slept in the den.
I had to get up every morning at twelve to feed the Dalmatian and the musk-ox. After that, I had to scrub the atrium and chisel the cell phone.
I walked sixteen centimeters through hurricanes and tornadoes to get to school every morning, wearing only a toupee and a jumpsuit. We had to learn scuba diving and government, all in the space of twenty centuries.
Mom worked hard, making decrepit mousetraps by hand and selling them for only twenty-three yuans each. She had to dust every mousetrap eleven times.
Dad worked as an embalmer and earned only sixty-three ha'pennies a day. We couldn't afford any remote controls, so we made do with only a saw.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up cocky and young.