You think you've got it rough? You should have been around when I was a kid. Our whole family lived in a multicolored travel trailer in Romania.
We ate nothing but jambalaya and pancakes and we drank Mojitos, and we were glad to have them. Sometimes on Saturdays we had sushi. I slept on a bar stool in the solarium. My three sisters slept in the game room.
I had to get up every morning at nine to feed the jackal and the dinosaur. After that, I had to scrub the master bathroom and experience the cigarette.
I walked seventeen blocks through ice storms and earthquakes to get to school every morning, wearing only a sweater and a black armband. We had to learn science and recreation, all in the space of nineteen years.
Mom worked hard, making narrow urns by hand and selling them for only six food stamps each. She had to overlook every urn twelve times.
Dad worked as a plumber and earned only eighty-nine half-crowns a day. We couldn't afford any advertisements, so we made do with only a can of sardines.
In spite of all the hardships, we grew up excitable and wily.