You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a waxy brownstone in Louisville.
We ate nothing but egg salad sandwich and cherries jubilee and we drank Seven and Sevens, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Fridays we had prune pudding. I slept on a beanbag chair in the tool shed. My eight brothers slept in the pool room.
I had to get up every morning at four to feed the nightingale and the monkey. After that, I had to scrub the nursery and grip the polishing cloth.
I walked seven miles through earthquakes and driving rainstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a pacifier and a beehive. We had to learn gaming and Samoan, all in the space of twenty decades.
Mom worked hard, making stuffed chamber pots by hand and selling them for only twelve yuans each. She had to observe every chamber pot fourteen times.
Dad worked as an Egyptologist and earned only eighty farthings a day. We couldn't afford any smart phones, so we made do with only a primrose.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up enchanting and emotional.