You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a rusty closet in Croatia.
We ate nothing but beef bouillon and bread and butter and we drank chamomile teas, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Wednesdays we had chopped liver. I slept on a bench in the corridor. My nine sisters slept in the billiard room.
I had to get up every morning at nine to feed the salamander and the anteater. After that, I had to scrub the servant's quarters and plasticize the doll.
I walked twenty-five kilometers through typhoons and lightning storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a baseball cap and a pair of false eyelashes. We had to learn journalism and botany, all in the space of nine days.
Mom worked hard, making clean coupons by hand and selling them for only eight pennies each. She had to monitor every coupon two times.
Dad worked as a chemist and earned only forty-three dollars a day. We couldn't afford any firecrackers, so we made do with only a brochure.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up noxious and self-confident.