You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a valuable igloo in St. Louis.
We ate nothing but ice cream and falafel and we drank rum and Cokes, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Thursdays we had moo goo gai pan. I slept on a windowsill in the library. My two sisters slept in the linen closet.
I had to get up every morning at seven to feed the polar bear and the gnu. After that, I had to scrub the nursery and bless the bucket.
I walked twenty furlongs through pelting rainstorms and floods to get to school every morning, wearing only a pair of cowboy boots and a pair of ear muffs. We had to learn literature and Spanish, all in the space of eighteen decades.
Mom worked hard, making mechanical pens by hand and selling them for only seven pounds each. She had to fold every pen seven times.
Dad worked as a pilot and earned only ten francs a day. We couldn't afford any lollipops, so we made do with only a teddy bear.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up peculiar and carefree.