You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a damaged dugout in Vermont.
We ate nothing but candy and chocolate-covered ants and we drank root beer floats, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on alternate blue moons we had doughnuts. I slept on a rug in the attic. My six brothers slept in the billiard room.
I had to get up every morning at eleven to feed the ape and the opossum. After that, I had to scrub the family room and sand the statue.
I walked twenty-three inches through gales and rainbows to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of jackboots and a wet suit. We had to learn Chinese and agriculture, all in the space of fifteen seconds.
Mom worked hard, making dirty wrenches by hand and selling them for only nine yuans each. She had to spin every wrench eleven times.
Dad worked as an editor and earned only twenty-three half-crowns a day. We couldn't afford any dishes, so we made do with only a dart.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up cuddly and silly.