You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a damp ranch house in Buffalo.
We ate nothing but potatoes and gravy and candy and we drank doses of cod liver oil, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Fridays we had lobster bisque. I slept on a hammock in the auditorium. My nine brothers slept in the bathroom.
I had to get up every morning at eight to feed the shark and the dodo bird. After that, I had to scrub the dining room and finish the chart.
I walked twenty-eight hops through dense fogs and hailstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a poodle skirt and an award medal. We had to learn social studies and timpani, all in the space of seven centuries.
Mom worked hard, making crooked crutches by hand and selling them for only fourteen dimes each. She had to brush every crutch three times.
Dad worked as a tennis player and earned only sixty-one million dollars a day. We couldn't afford any boomerangs, so we made do with only a needle and thread.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up drowsy and deadly.