My Uncle Freebite believed modern people had become too comfortable.

He blamed soft mattresses, flavored yogurt, and thermostats.

“Human beings,” he used to say, “weren’t meant to know the exact temperature of a room.”

Uncle Freebite was not what experts call “fully qualified for independent thought.”

Still, that never stopped him from developing theories.

One winter, after reading half a psychology article in a dentist’s waiting room, he became convinced that hardship improved character.

Not severe hardship.

Just enough suffering to keep a person alert.

He called it “controlled adversity.”

Unfortunately, he also owned rental property.

That was when things got complicated.

Freebite decided to build what he proudly described as:

“A self-improving rental experience.”

To the naked eye, the house looked normal enough.

Small front lawn.

Two bedrooms.

One bathroom.

Curtains that smelled faintly of boiled cabbage.

But hidden inside the house were dozens of “character-building opportunities.”

For example, the hallway floor contained what Freebite called a “toe-awareness wire.”

Most people would describe it as a trip wire.

When triggered, it snapped upward and broke one of the tenant’s smaller toes.

Not the important toes.

Just the ones “nature barely uses anymore.”

To Freebite’s credit, he immediately provided home remedies.

These included:

• mustard powder,
• bacon grease,
• onions,
• and once, inexplicably, a live trout.

“You’ll thank me later,” he’d say.

And strangely enough, some tenants did improve.

Within days they could hop astonishing distances.

One man became so agile he could put on pants while balancing on a kitchen chair.

Another tenant developed reflexes normally associated with jungle cats.

Then came the bathroom project.

Freebite worried tenants had become too dependent on “luxury bathing.”

So he modified the plumbing system to occasionally produce what he called:

“Surprise thermal resilience.”

The bathtub water shifted without warning from “pleasant spring rain” to “boiling lobster festival.”

Admittedly, one tenant required a week in the hospital.

But afterward she described herself as:

“Much more aware of life.”

Which Freebite considered a complete victory.

The newspapers disagreed.

Still, his masterpiece was the ceiling ninja.

Freebite had read somewhere that modern humans lacked survival instincts.

So he hired a former amateur magician named Carl to crouch in the attic crawlspace.

At random intervals Carl would drop through a hidden ceiling panel and lightly choke tenants.

Nothing fatal.

Mostly motivational.

The results were extraordinary.

Tenants learned:

• never to relax completely,
• to sleep with one eye open,
• and to distrust ceiling fans.

One graduate student reportedly became so alert he could sense danger before entering a room.

Unfortunately, he also fled every Olive Garden he entered after hearing accordion music.

There were lawsuits, of course.

Several.

One tenant objected to the “electrified self-esteem staircase.”

Another complained about the “confidence raccoon.”

But Freebite remained firm.

“You people want growth without discomfort,” he’d say, waving legal papers around the yard. “That’s not how nature works.”

Oddly enough, there may have been something to his madness.

Former tenants became remarkably resilient.

One survived a moose attack.

Another escaped a pyramid scheme in Phoenix.

A third successfully assembled IKEA furniture without crying.

And perhaps most impressive of all…

not one former tenant was ever surprised by anything again.

Personally, I still think Uncle Freebite was insane.

But I will admit this:

If a ninja drops from my ceiling tonight…

I’m probably better prepared than most people.