My brother (younger by 4 years) dropped out of high school and started getting in trouble with the law for petty stuff like graffiti. My parents came to me for help with paying his fines and legal bills, once begging me to wire $1700 to the courts so that he wouldn't have to do time. (I subsequently discovered that he had a year to pay the fine or work it off with community service, but sat on it until 2 weeks before the deadline. When I asked him why he didn't do the community service, his response was that he's done that before and didn't like it because it left him tired at the end of the day.) Then when the idiot turned 30 and still had no job, they decided that for the sake of his 'self-esteem as a man', they'd buy him a place of his own. They took $350k out of their savings and bought him a luxury condo downtown. Just like that. Handed him the keys. Here you go son, now you have your own place just like your older brother and you never have to pay a mortgage to boot. You don't have to live in our basement anymore and now you can feel like a real man. This all went down oh, 4 years ago? Yet, somehow I still feel like I just got kicked in the nuts.
Yes, I know this is entirely OT, but I needed to vent.