You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in an important manor house in Uganda.
We ate nothing but fried chicken and cherries jubilee and we drank glasses of papaya juice, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had roast turkey. I slept on a cushion in the porch. My eight brothers slept in the living room.
I had to get up every morning at four to feed the hog and the android. After that, I had to scrub the front porch and stack the Big Gulp.
I walked eighteen millimeters through windy days and dust storms to get to school every morning, wearing only a diaper and a pair of shoes. We had to learn rocket science and sociology, all in the space of seventeen weeks.
Mom worked hard, making hot pink bananas by hand and selling them for only twenty-four pennies each. She had to shove every banana thirteen times.
Dad worked as a juggler and earned only forty half-crowns a day. We couldn't afford any cans of sardines, so we made do with only a biscuit.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up wary and forgetful.