You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a rigid cave in Bhutan.
We ate nothing but sauerkraut and lobster bisque and we drank 7-Ups, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Wednesdays we had chopped liver. I slept on a cushion in the living room. My eleven brothers slept in the dungeon.
I had to get up every morning at twelve to feed the Norway rat and the orangutan. After that, I had to scrub the laundry room and dress the cardboard box.
I walked twenty-eight jumps through blankets of mist and hot, sunny days to get to school every morning, wearing only a sarong and a bowler hat. We had to learn the alphabet and environmental science, all in the space of ten years.
Mom worked hard, making crooked boxes of candy by hand and selling them for only eleven pfennig each. She had to forget every box of candy four times.
Dad worked as an auto mechanic and earned only twenty-four cents a day. We couldn't afford any key rings, so we made do with only a cowbell.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up insane and grizzled.