You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a brittle chapel in Tallahassee.
We ate nothing but French fries and omelet and we drank Mojitos, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had tuna casserole. I slept on a chest of drawers in the ballroom. My twelve sisters slept in the tool shed.
I had to get up every morning at eleven to feed the robot and the buffalo. After that, I had to scrub the patio and wallop the stick.
I walked thirty-five hops through palls of doom and drizzles to get to school every morning, wearing only a wristwatch and a miniskirt. We had to learn statistics and neurobiology, all in the space of twenty months.
Mom worked hard, making plastic dead hamsters by hand and selling them for only eight francs each. She had to clean off every dead hamster six times.
Dad worked as a stamp collector and earned only thirty-seven half-crowns a day. We couldn't afford any amulets, so we made do with only an umbrella.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up ambitious and cheerful.