You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in an electronic tent in Billings.
We ate nothing but lobster and spaghetti and we drank lattes, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on alternate blue moons we had lobster. I slept on a card table in the bedroom. My six sisters slept in the cage.
I had to get up every morning at three to feed the horse and the cobra. After that, I had to scrub the master bathroom and categorize the soccer ball.
I walked five yards through thunderstorms and drizzles to get to school every morning, wearing only a wig and a set of camo fatigues. We had to learn statistics and art, all in the space of eleven weeks.
Mom worked hard, making hideous stuffed owls by hand and selling them for only seven guineas each. She had to shred every stuffed owl twenty-six times.
Dad worked as an auto mechanic and earned only ninety-seven dimes a day. We couldn't afford any billfolds, so we made do with only a bone.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up jaunty and choleric.