You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a puzzling townhouse in Akron.
We ate nothing but roast beef and macaroni and we drank Tom Collins, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Fridays we had roast Cornish game hen. I slept on a mattress in the oubliette. My nine brothers slept in the family room.
I had to get up every morning at nine to feed the otter and the mustang. After that, I had to scrub the hall and prod the tissue.
I walked seven furlongs through earthquakes and sandstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a sport coat and a gladiator helmet. We had to learn statistics and carpentry, all in the space of nineteen minutes.
Mom worked hard, making gleaming blank checks by hand and selling them for only twenty-three pesos each. She had to load every blank check two times.
Dad worked as a computer geek and earned only two quarters a day. We couldn't afford any pairs of pliers, so we made do with only a yardstick.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up fuzzy and naïve.