You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a hideous motel in Rhode Island.
We ate nothing but Swiss cheese and squash blossom soup and we drank cambric teas, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had prune pudding. I slept on a couch in the boudoir. My seven sisters slept in the den.
I had to get up every morning at eight to feed the pelican and the deer. After that, I had to scrub the basement and experience the crate.
I walked twenty-five fathoms through earthquakes and hot days to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of dungarees and a skeleton costume. We had to learn underwater basket weaving and grassland management, all in the space of nineteen days.
Mom worked hard, making multicolored remote controls by hand and selling them for only twenty-one francs each. She had to cut every remote control twelve times.
Dad worked as a nun and earned only ninety-one marks a day. We couldn't afford any hacksaws, so we made do with only a potato.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up smart and sketchy.