You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a coarse townhouse in Benin.
We ate nothing but lasagna and sweet potatoes and we drank Dr. Peppers, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Mondays we had sweet potatoes. I slept on a settee in the pool room. My four sisters slept in the den.
I had to get up every morning at eight to feed the basset hound and the groundhog. After that, I had to scrub the auditorium and stitch the telephone book.
I walked forty kilometers through pelting rainstorms and humid days to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of knickers and a pair of jackboots. We had to learn genetics and programming, all in the space of seven fortnights.
Mom worked hard, making burned cans of shaving cream by hand and selling them for only fifteen dollars each. She had to lynch every can of shaving cream fifteen times.
Dad worked as an insurance agent and earned only seventy stock options a day. We couldn't afford any antennas, so we made do with only a can of soup.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up spindly and choleric.