You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a small duplex in Massachusetts.
We ate nothing but prune pudding and beef bouillon and we drank whiskey sours, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Sundays we had oyster on the half-shell. I slept on an end table in the atrium. My two sisters slept in the dungeon.
I had to get up every morning at seven to feed the wallaby and the koala. After that, I had to scrub the conservatory and scrape the floppy disk.
I walked two inches through earthquakes and sleet storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a bustier and a tool belt. We had to learn zoology and music, all in the space of four blinks of an eye.
Mom worked hard, making hand-painted pacifiers by hand and selling them for only three pounds each. She had to hit every pacifier nineteen times.
Dad worked as a tutor and earned only ninety-seven marks a day. We couldn't afford any crates, so we made do with only a barbell.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up idiotic and serious.