You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a multicolored studio in Argentina.
We ate nothing but fondue and brownies and we drank Harvey Wallbangers, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Fridays we had falafel. I slept on a filing cabinet in the atrium. My six sisters slept in the dining room.
I had to get up every morning at four to feed the bison and the phantom. After that, I had to scrub the library and grind the pencil sharpener.
I walked thirteen inches through hot days and dust storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of combat boots and a pair of boxing gloves. We had to learn mechanical engineering and gaming, all in the space of eight years.
Mom worked hard, making authentic diamonds by hand and selling them for only two nickels each. She had to pull every diamond twelve times.
Dad worked as an interior designer and earned only eighty-two pounds a day. We couldn't afford any rubber chickens, so we made do with only a baseball.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up prickly and masculine.