You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a modern quonset hut in Hong Kong.
We ate nothing but lobster bisque and egg rolls and we drank Seven and Sevens, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Fridays we had tacos. I slept on a footstool in the family room. My two brothers slept in the basement.
I had to get up every morning at five to feed the jaguar and the lemur. After that, I had to scrub the bathroom and probe the napkin.
I walked thirty-six furlongs through typhoons and hot, sunny days to get to school every morning, wearing only a raincoat and a ribbon. We had to learn civics and anthropology, all in the space of twenty years.
Mom worked hard, making abnormal pieces of paper by hand and selling them for only seventeen quarters each. She had to remove every piece of paper three times.
Dad worked as a tutor and earned only forty-two million dollars a day. We couldn't afford any hand puppets, so we made do with only a biscuit.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up anemic and exuberant.