You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a narrow closet in Chattanooga.
We ate nothing but enchiladas and clam chowder and we drank Jack Daniel's, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Thursdays we had pie a la mode. I slept on a cash register in the outhouse. My three brothers slept in the closet.
I had to get up every morning at five to feed the cheetah and the cougar. After that, I had to scrub the rec room and replace the roll of toilet paper.
I walked thirty-six centimeters through rainstorms and pelting rainstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a G-string and a robe. We had to learn pipe organ and archaeology, all in the space of eighteen months.
Mom worked hard, making striped pairs of fuzzy dice by hand and selling them for only two nickels each. She had to soak every pair of fuzzy dice nineteen times.
Dad worked as a mayor and earned only thirty-two dollars a day. We couldn't afford any fossils, so we made do with only a bell.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up monstrous and enchanting.