You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in an immense junk car in Berkeley.
We ate nothing but chicken gumbo and chocolate-covered ants and we drank mint juleps, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Sundays we had hamburgers. I slept on a computer in the oubliette. My seven sisters slept in the foyer.
I had to get up every morning at nine to feed the dormouse and the tarantula. After that, I had to scrub the patio and guard the suitcase.
I walked thirty-eight light years through hot days and thunderstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of pantaloons and a bowler hat. We had to learn physiology and acupuncture, all in the space of fifteen centuries.
Mom worked hard, making delicate diaries by hand and selling them for only eleven pfennig each. She had to loosen every diary eight times.
Dad worked as a crane operator and earned only thirty-seven ha'pennies a day. We couldn't afford any flyswatters, so we made do with only a pumpkin.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up drowsy and nonchalant.