You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a slimy condominium in São Paulo.
We ate nothing but ravioli and mashed potatoes and we drank Cokes, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had sushi. I slept on a stairway in the nursery. My four sisters slept in the study.
I had to get up every morning at three to feed the gila monster and the hog. After that, I had to scrub the family room and smear the remote control.
I walked twenty-nine light years through sandstorms and ice storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a fedora and a jerkin. We had to learn gaming and civics, all in the space of seventeen years.
Mom worked hard, making dusty toilet plungers by hand and selling them for only twenty-five dollars each. She had to feel every toilet plunger fourteen times.
Dad worked as an ecologist and earned only twenty-nine Euros a day. We couldn't afford any avocados, so we made do with only a coupon.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up megalomaniacal and sassy.