You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a delicate motel in New Orleans.
We ate nothing but blueberry pie and steak and we drank doses of cod liver oil, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Mondays we had Cheerios. I slept on a pillow in the nursery. My five sisters slept in the porch.
I had to get up every morning at three to feed the squirrel and the mare. After that, I had to scrub the library and rock the cracker.
I walked nineteen yards through pelting rainstorms and driving rainstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of khakis and a hood. We had to learn carpentry and theology, all in the space of fourteen minutes.
Mom worked hard, making funny oboes by hand and selling them for only two guineas each. She had to fix every oboe twenty-seven times.
Dad worked as a poet and earned only ninety-nine pesos a day. We couldn't afford any amulets, so we made do with only an ashtray.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up refined and modest.