You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a big chateau in Huntsville.
We ate nothing but fondue and clam chowder and we drank chocolate milks, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Tuesdays we had brownies. I slept on a crib in the workshop. My seven brothers slept in the cage.
I had to get up every morning at twelve to feed the pheasant and the Siamese cat. After that, I had to scrub the laundry room and stabilize the paper bag.
I walked thirty-nine miles through drought and thunderstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a hood and a bib. We had to learn herbalism and reading, all in the space of fourteen hours.
Mom worked hard, making flexible clothespins by hand and selling them for only twenty-four ha'pennies each. She had to seal every clothespin sixteen times.
Dad worked as an architect and earned only fifty-eight pfennig a day. We couldn't afford any blank checks, so we made do with only a can of soup.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up tall and disgusting.