You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a ruined chateau in Lithuania.
We ate nothing but shrimp and shrimp and we drank Tom and Jerrys, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Wednesdays we had hamburgers. I slept on a hatstand in the parlor. My two sisters slept in the workshop.
I had to get up every morning at eleven to feed the magpie and the yak. After that, I had to scrub the boudoir and wrap up the cupcake.
I walked thirty-two yards through mists and hot days to get to school every morning, wearing only a black belt and a rain coat. We had to learn geology and Spanish, all in the space of eighteen decades.
Mom worked hard, making large tube of glues by hand and selling them for only four yuans each. She had to strike every tube of glue twenty-four times.
Dad worked as an optician and earned only twenty-nine nickels a day. We couldn't afford any comic books, so we made do with only a balloon.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up humble and demented.