You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in an autographed teepee in Germany.
We ate nothing but biscuits and gravy and falafel and we drank glasses of tomato juice, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Mondays we had cinnamon toast. I slept on a nightstand in the lounge. My ten sisters slept in the ballroom.
I had to get up every morning at ten to feed the walrus and the cougar. After that, I had to scrub the patio and squash the contract.
I walked twenty-five jumps through downpours and drizzles to get to school every morning, wearing only a mask and a headscarf. We had to learn poetry and engineering, all in the space of ten blinks of an eye.
Mom worked hard, making greasy shoes by hand and selling them for only eight farthings each. She had to chisel every shoe thirty times.
Dad worked as a sales representative and earned only twenty-one doubloons a day. We couldn't afford any potatoes, so we made do with only a contract.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up big and agile.