I knew the son of wealthy Chinese immigrants. They kept pushing him and his brother to hyper-achieve. They did martial arts, music, had tutors and the whole micro-managed upbringing.

When I'd visit, I had to sit on the floor because they only had pure, white furniture.

My friend lost his mind in high school and had to go to the mental hospital many times. As I grew closer to the family and finally achieved couch-sitting status, I was also privy to the pleas of the parents, as well as full access to the house.

There were bowling ball-sized holes, produced by the skull of my friend's brother. My friend once invited me over to listen to some music, and the expensive dining room set was just in splinters. He had smashed a table and eight chairs and no one had cleaned it up. It was just rubble on the floor. The oven glass was also shattered.

I can only assume that everyone left in a hurry and my buddy, non-chalantly, invited me to listen to Nirvana or RHCP or whatever in the rubble unaware that it was totally bonkers.

This list of crazy just goes on and on and on. But, you get the idea.

It's now been 20+ years and 458 miles of distance (I've measured it). And this guy still contacts me with crazy stories.

His, brother, by the way, ended up some super successful CFO somewhere. I think it had to do with cat food or cat products. But, he came out as gay, which devastated the parents. They asked me to check in on their cats when the found out, because they needed to process that shit in Fiji or something. My friend came home during that time and let the cats out, who were too scared to come back in... Catching cats is a nightmare.