You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a rare farmhouse in Libya.
We ate nothing but refried beans and mushroom quiche and we drank Bud Lites, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Mondays we had borscht. I slept on a nightstand in the dining room. My twelve sisters slept in the guest room.
I had to get up every morning at eleven to feed the eel and the hippopotamus. After that, I had to scrub the garage and slash the pen.
I walked thirty-one feet through driving rainstorms and dense fogs to get to school every morning, wearing only a sarong and a stovepipe hat. We had to learn environmental science and rocket science, all in the space of seven decades.
Mom worked hard, making immense apples by hand and selling them for only twenty-four doubloons each. She had to silence every apple six times.
Dad worked as a travel agent and earned only ninety-three dollars a day. We couldn't afford any baskets, so we made do with only a billiard ball.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up passionate and bizarre.