You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a modern housing project in Rio.
We ate nothing but cherries jubilee and hash and we drank Jack Daniel's, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Mondays we had mashed potatoes. I slept on a rocking chair in the auditorium. My two sisters slept in the workshop.
I had to get up every morning at three to feed the yak and the raccoon. After that, I had to scrub the garage and roll the diary.
I walked fourteen feet through earthquakes and pelting rainstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of safety glasses and a cowboy hat. We had to learn communication and environmental science, all in the space of nine decades.
Mom worked hard, making rough clocks by hand and selling them for only thirteen yuans each. She had to switch every clock twenty times.
Dad worked as a lifeguard and earned only eighty-six pennies a day. We couldn't afford any rolls of toilet paper, so we made do with only a flute.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up considerate and fiendish.