You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a jagged nunnery in the Philippines.
We ate nothing but sauerkraut and egg rolls and we drank cups of hot cider, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Tuesdays we had tortillas. I slept on a hope chest in the hall. My eleven brothers slept in the basement.
I had to get up every morning at ten to feed the caribou and the reindeer. After that, I had to scrub the foyer and identify the arrowhead.
I walked fourteen millimeters through bits of precipitation and thunderstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a babushka and a tie. We had to learn aeronautics and geology, all in the space of four centuries.
Mom worked hard, making sophisticated pieces of paper by hand and selling them for only two marks each. She had to grind every piece of paper twenty-six times.
Dad worked as a food critic and earned only fifty-seven quarters a day. We couldn't afford any paper clips, so we made do with only a sponge.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up brilliant and tall.