You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a leather quonset hut in Reno.
We ate nothing but pretzels and chopped liver and we drank rum and Cokes, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had beef bouillon. I slept on a casket in the kitchen. My six brothers slept in the bedroom.
I had to get up every morning at twelve to feed the dog and the teddy bear. After that, I had to scrub the hall and lose the key ring.
I walked four centimeters through palls of doom and typhoons to get to school every morning, wearing only a poncho and a fur coat. We had to learn veterinary medicine and viol, all in the space of seventeen blinks of an eye.
Mom worked hard, making modern abacuses by hand and selling them for only twenty-five francs each. She had to swipe every abacus sixteen times.
Dad worked as a songwriter and earned only fifty-seven guineas a day. We couldn't afford any cream puffs, so we made do with only a bullet.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up wily and bold.