I'm sorry that this isn't very comical or humorous, but actually very dark.

Probably on the top of my immediate family's list was one morning back in elementary school, after a sleep-over I'd had with one of my closest friends at the time- with he and my older brother who roomed with me. I had just recently woken up and was setting up a multiplayer match for Ratchet & Clank: Deadlocked. Well I don't know for sure if I went to get some food first or went to the stairwell (my room was upstairs) to investigate the noises, but as my friend sat by the PS2 curiously wondering what I was frozen at the top of the stairs about, I just heard "oof" "ugh" "ah" "pff" and all manner of other sounds that result from two men in a wrestling match. Soon after these sounds reached my ears I heard my little sister (probably about 10 or 11 at the time) screaming. I don't remember exactly what she was screaming but I think it was something like "Daddy, stop! Stop it! Stop it, Daddy!" at the top of her high-pitched and terrified lungs.

I didn't dare go downstairs, I was frozen and terrified as well as in shock. I stayed upstairs almost that entire day, even when sirens were heard outside our house and I watched police men question my bleeding dad and our family friend separately out in the yard, later followed by my mom who was in shambles.

This family friend, who had also spent the night before at our place- he'd spent many nights with us, we took him in from living on the streets for a time- had been having an affair with my mom, and that morning my mom's close friend had finally told my dad. He had driven home from the McDonald's he'd received at which he'd received the news, and proceeded to pummel this family friend in our living room.

My sister was the only one of us siblings who witnessed what happened first-hand, and I'd never ask her about details, it's just not something you do in these cases.

This was the first jolting step that turned into my sheltered, private-schooled, suburban life being flipped upside down, and a divorce followed, myself and siblings went to my dad's custody and my life went on a completely different course than any of us ever thought it would.

Though such dark things should never have happened, and I'd never wish them on anyone, I am who I am and where I am today because of them, and as someone who believes in fate and intention behind the universe, I trust that they had happen and wouldn't have it any other way as a result.