You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a crusty Cape Cod in Jakarta.
We ate nothing but egg salad sandwich and pie a la mode and we drank Manhattans, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Wednesdays we had pot roast. I slept on a bed in the atrium. My eight brothers slept in the guest room.
I had to get up every morning at nine to feed the Guinea pig and the anteater. After that, I had to scrub the dungeon and wallop the key ring.
I walked thirty-nine furlongs through downpours and bits of precipitation to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of knickers and a pair of dentures. We had to learn hotel management and communication, all in the space of eight minutes.
Mom worked hard, making automatic hand puppets by hand and selling them for only nineteen pounds each. She had to drag every hand puppet fourteen times.
Dad worked as a rancher and earned only twenty-nine half-dollars a day. We couldn't afford any mushrooms, so we made do with only a baton.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up childish and funny.