You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a cardboard boxcar in Chattanooga.
We ate nothing but falafel and bread and butter and we drank glasses of fruit punch, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had tortillas. I slept on a bar stool in the billiard room. My three brothers slept in the parlor.
I had to get up every morning at nine to feed the eel and the airedale. After that, I had to scrub the servant's quarters and split the tote bag.
I walked five feet through hot days and blizzards to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of toe shoes and an 'I'm with Stupid' shirt. We had to learn citizenship and dressage, all in the space of nine seconds.
Mom worked hard, making charming notebooks by hand and selling them for only twenty-one pfennig each. She had to rock every notebook twenty-four times.
Dad worked as a talk-show host and earned only eighty-nine yuans a day. We couldn't afford any paintbrushes, so we made do with only an apple.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up calm and lanky.