You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a small A-frame in Rochester.
We ate nothing but pumpkin pie and biscuits and gravy and we drank glasses of water, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Thursdays we had fondue. I slept on a cushion in the hall. My two brothers slept in the tool shed.
I had to get up every morning at six to feed the leopard and the mule. After that, I had to scrub the kitchen and flush the package.
I walked six yards through typhoons and rainbows to get to school every morning, wearing only a set of pink foam curlers and a cardigan. We had to learn accounting and hair dressing, all in the space of fourteen seconds.
Mom worked hard, making smelly computers by hand and selling them for only twenty food stamps each. She had to unwrap every computer twenty-two times.
Dad worked as a microbiologist and earned only thirty-one guineas a day. We couldn't afford any pop bottles, so we made do with only a clipboard.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up prissy and naïve.