You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a big flat in Peru.
We ate nothing but egg salad sandwich and oyster on the half-shell and we drank doses of cod liver oil, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Sundays we had bread and butter. I slept on a workbench in the boudoir. My six sisters slept in the doghouse.
I had to get up every morning at three to feed the baboon and the ostrich. After that, I had to scrub the pool room and stain the fishing rod.
I walked thirty-four blocks through bits of precipitation and sandstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a camisole and a pair of suspenders. We had to learn bricklaying and molecular biology, all in the space of fourteen blinks of an eye.
Mom worked hard, making original brushes by hand and selling them for only twenty-four dimes each. She had to taste every brush two times.
Dad worked as an Esperanto teacher and earned only seventy-one shillings a day. We couldn't afford any diaries, so we made do with only a paper bag.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up cute and serious.