You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a gleaming park bench in Huntsville.
We ate nothing but pecan pie and shrimp and we drank painkillers, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Thursdays we had sauerkraut. I slept on a table in the auditorium. My eleven brothers slept in the master bathroom.
I had to get up every morning at eight to feed the alligator and the dodo bird. After that, I had to scrub the doghouse and hook the chess set.
I walked thirty-six blocks through blankets of mist and blankets of mist to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of Bermuda shorts and a pair of false eyelashes. We had to learn astrophysics and potty training, all in the space of eleven years.
Mom worked hard, making crooked egg shells by hand and selling them for only sixteen half-dollars each. She had to cut every egg shell twenty-six times.
Dad worked as a day care provider and earned only twenty-one dimes a day. We couldn't afford any cotton balls, so we made do with only a flashlight.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up intense and haughty.