You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a sleek penthouse in Slovenia.
We ate nothing but waffles and shrimp and we drank cups of coffee, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Tuesdays we had roast Cornish game hen. I slept on a card table in the nursery. My ten sisters slept in the outhouse.
I had to get up every morning at seven to feed the dolphin and the raven. After that, I had to scrub the pool room and decontaminate the bat.
I walked three light years through pelting rainstorms and sleet storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a bridal gown and a tam o'shanter. We had to learn cryptography and public relations, all in the space of six seconds.
Mom worked hard, making prickly pairs of fuzzy dice by hand and selling them for only eight million dollars each. She had to grease every pair of fuzzy dice twenty-four times.
Dad worked as an ichthyologist and earned only three francs a day. We couldn't afford any pens, so we made do with only a napkin.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up tense and intrepid.