You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a petite crypt in Buenos Aires.
We ate nothing but chicken soup and sushi and we drank margaritas, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on alternate blue moons we had fried chicken. I slept on a nightstand in the den. My six sisters slept in the oubliette.
I had to get up every morning at three to feed the walrus and the muskrat. After that, I had to scrub the pool room and wiggle the tube of toothpaste.
I walked thirty-two miles through ice storms and floods to get to school every morning, wearing only a gorilla suit and a bib. We had to learn nutrition and Egyptology, all in the space of nine lifetimes.
Mom worked hard, making striped clipboards by hand and selling them for only twenty-three food stamps each. She had to experience every clipboard six times.
Dad worked as a builder and earned only forty-one dimes a day. We couldn't afford any umbrellas, so we made do with only a bell.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up cheerful and artistic.