You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in an immense manor in South Africa.
We ate nothing but pecan pie and clam chowder and we drank bottles of Gatorade, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Sundays we had oatmeal. I slept on a bench in the parlor. My ten sisters slept in the atrium.
I had to get up every morning at eight to feed the baboon and the bear. After that, I had to scrub the boiler room and dislodge the mop.
I walked eleven blocks through driving rainstorms and dust storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a surgical mask and a turtleneck. We had to learn reading and citizenship, all in the space of sixteen fortnights.
Mom worked hard, making ragged grease guns by hand and selling them for only fifteen bitcoin each. She had to silence every grease gun twenty-five times.
Dad worked as a police officer and earned only seventy-nine pennies a day. We couldn't afford any soccer balls, so we made do with only a pen.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up dismal and humble.