You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a greasy cottage in South Bend.
We ate nothing but roast beef and refried beans and we drank root beers, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Mondays we had cookies. I slept on a footstool in the billiard room. My six sisters slept in the dining room.
I had to get up every morning at eleven to feed the alligator and the zebra. After that, I had to scrub the ballroom and manage the stone.
I walked thirty-six light years through hailstorms and pelting rainstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of jeans and a tam o'shanter. We had to learn business and mythology, all in the space of fifteen hours.
Mom worked hard, making coarse remote controls by hand and selling them for only nine pesos each. She had to face every remote control seventeen times.
Dad worked as a spy and earned only seventy-four cents a day. We couldn't afford any sea shells, so we made do with only a pair of knitting needles.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up irate and crafty.