You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in an overgrown duplex in Berlin.
We ate nothing but shrimp and crab rangoon and we drank cups of hot chocolate, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Sundays we had scrambled eggs. I slept on a fainting couch in the tool shed. My five brothers slept in the pool room.
I had to get up every morning at three to feed the muskrat and the monster. After that, I had to scrub the laundry room and shellac the can of soup.
I walked two furlongs through snowstorms and blizzards to get to school every morning, wearing only a big grin and a tam o'shanter. We had to learn agriculture and hair dressing, all in the space of one week.
Mom worked hard, making spongy microscopes by hand and selling them for only six pennies each. She had to kick every microscope thirty times.
Dad worked as an architect and earned only forty stock options a day. We couldn't afford any iPhones, so we made do with only a ticket.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up pensive and humble.