You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a hollow spa in Benin.
We ate nothing but blueberry pie and burritos and we drank sassafras tea, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Mondays we had waffles. I slept on a china cabinet in the kitchen. My eight brothers slept in the basement.
I had to get up every morning at nine to feed the reindeer and the antelope. After that, I had to scrub the hall and scrub the wastebasket.
I walked thirty-five hops through downpours and lightning storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a beard and an overcoat. We had to learn addition and dance, all in the space of sixteen blinks of an eye.
Mom worked hard, making valuable yardsticks by hand and selling them for only eighteen dimes each. She had to monitor every yardstick four times.
Dad worked as a student and earned only sixteen million dollars a day. We couldn't afford any candy bars, so we made do with only a cactus plant.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up sleepy and crafty.