My best friend in high school was Mike, right up until he got expelled for punching one of the teachers.
Mike was a hot head, to put it lightly, partially because he was raised in a military style compound outside of town by a family of eccentrics.
Underneath all the aggression and weirdness, Mike was a really nice, funny guy. I heard stories about the family over the years, but I hadn’t seen Mike in over a decade when he called me at work one day. We caught up on old times a little bit, but then he said he was calling about some HVAC work he needed done. He was growing orchids, he said, and they needed a very specific set of climate conditions, so he wanted me to customize his HVAC system to meet those needs. I assumed he was lying, and was actually growing pot, but when he took me downstairs to check out the HVAC settings, I found a whole room of beautiful flowers. Orchids need very high humidity, so he had two different humidifiers in the room, but they weren’t giving him the results he wanted. I told Mike he needed to insulate the basement from the rest of the house, and then increase the heating down here by ten or fifteen degrees. A small space heater would do the job, but he also needed additional humidity. I discussed with him some ideas for one very powerful humidifier to place on the ceiling for better coverage of the room, and all of these lovely orchids.