You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a dry resort in Indiana.
We ate nothing but bonbons and cabbage and we drank shots of whiskey, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Thursdays we had banana split. I slept on a counter in the billiard room. My eight brothers slept in the library.
I had to get up every morning at twelve to feed the fox and the cobra. After that, I had to scrub the attic and rotate the book.
I walked forty feet through bits of precipitation and humid days to get to school every morning, wearing only a ring and a pair of briefs. We had to learn astronomy and Greek, all in the space of seven years.
Mom worked hard, making rancid protest signs by hand and selling them for only five ha'pennies each. She had to brandish every protest sign thirty times.
Dad worked as a magistrate and earned only fifty-five dimes a day. We couldn't afford any peace pipes, so we made do with only a Rubik's cube.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up somber and timid.