You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a striped A-frame in Tokyo.
We ate nothing but candy and hamburgers and we drank Long Island iced teas, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Tuesdays we had jambalaya. I slept on a wardrobe in the den. My twelve sisters slept in the front porch.
I had to get up every morning at nine to feed the jellyfish and the moose. After that, I had to scrub the front porch and reject the sponge.
I walked nineteen feet through dense fogs and hot days to get to school every morning, wearing only a skirt and a bikini. We had to learn constitutional law and statistics, all in the space of fifteen fortnights.
Mom worked hard, making dirty bird baths by hand and selling them for only twenty crowns each. She had to lick every bird bath twenty-four times.
Dad worked as a housekeeper and earned only thirty-four francs a day. We couldn't afford any tickets, so we made do with only a feather.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up conscientious and sophisticated.