A Sad Breakfast Tale

It was a cold, dark, dreary morning in a sleepy little suburb of eastern Cincinnati.

The slave child has been awoken put to work, frying up some Bob Evans ("down o the farm") sausage for her vittles before she's forced to walk 10 miles in the freezing wind to school. When asked what she'll learn today, she yawns and says, "I dunno. And I don't care." Fourth grade is hell, apparently.

She longs for the salad days of kindergarten, when there was "less school and more fun."

No one knows how hard it is to be her ... a poor, mistreated, malnourished, dejected and otherwise put upon 9-year old waif, wrapped in a Pocahontas blanket for dramatic effect to keep warm. If she could only play Wii and drink Coca Cola, her morning might be passable, but apparently there are house rules.

"Poor Margaret," her uncle asks, interrupting the cooking. "What's the hardest thing about being you?"

"Everything," she sighs.