You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in an ornate hovel in Chattanooga.
We ate nothing but cornbread and fried chicken and we drank Jack Daniel's, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Fridays we had fish and chips. I slept on a four-poster bed in the library. My nine brothers slept in the billiard room.
I had to get up every morning at four to feed the giraffe and the penguin. After that, I had to scrub the dungeon and protect the cactus plant.
I walked seventeen kilometers through sleet storms and pelting rainstorms to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of overalls and a wristwatch. We had to learn zoology and Russian, all in the space of fifteen months.
Mom worked hard, making jagged cigarettes by hand and selling them for only seven pesos each. She had to jab every cigarette seventeen times.
Dad worked as a farmer and earned only twenty-nine Euros a day. We couldn't afford any apples, so we made do with only a teacup.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up crafty and silly.