You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a gooey dugout in Serbia.
We ate nothing but mashed potatoes and ham and we drank sassafras teas, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Fridays we had pot roast. I slept on a counter in the boudoir. My two sisters slept in the corridor.
I had to get up every morning at seven to feed the musk-ox and the sheep. After that, I had to scrub the guest room and jab the bouquet.
I walked eight furlongs through floods and hot days to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of bloomers and a bridal gown. We had to learn astrology and theology, all in the space of three seconds.
Mom worked hard, making ragged buttons by hand and selling them for only twelve marks each. She had to photograph every button nineteen times.
Dad worked as a cheesemaker and earned only thirty-five million dollars a day. We couldn't afford any oriental vases, so we made do with only a bilge pump.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up sketchy and cruel.