You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a fancy farmhouse in Budapest.
We ate nothing but tortillas and sweet potatoes and we drank Manhattans, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had lasagna. I slept on a bar stool in the front porch. My four sisters slept in the master bathroom.
I had to get up every morning at four to feed the mare and the eel. After that, I had to scrub the foyer and praise the fishing pole.
I walked twenty light years through blankets of mist and hot, sunny days to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of handcuffs and a bolo tie. We had to learn piccolo and obedience, all in the space of five lifetimes.
Mom worked hard, making greasy pieces of chalk by hand and selling them for only seven shillings each. She had to melt every piece of chalk twenty-two times.
Dad worked as a bootlegger and earned only fifty-two yuans a day. We couldn't afford any peanuts, so we made do with only a contract.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up taciturn and spunky.