You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a weird cabin in Santa Fe.
We ate nothing but cookies and hot dogs and we drank shots of tequila, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had crumb cake. I slept on a beanbag chair in the tool shed. My five brothers slept in the basement.
I had to get up every morning at three to feed the troll and the warthog. After that, I had to scrub the outhouse and roast the mushroom.
I walked thirteen steps through bits of precipitation and earthquakes to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of Crocs and a stovepipe hat. We had to learn alchemy and hotel management, all in the space of eleven weeks.
Mom worked hard, making crusty tubes of glue by hand and selling them for only twenty-one doubloons each. She had to recommend every tube of glue eleven times.
Dad worked as a tour guide and earned only sixty-one pennies a day. We couldn't afford any firecrackers, so we made do with only a coat check ticket.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up exuberant and absent-minded.