also interesting

Gina is an interesting girl.

As such she had an interesting way to deal with insomnia. Whenever she had trouble falling asleep, she would pitch a tent over her bed and pretend she was camping in the wilderness.

To aid in the ruse, she listened to a Youtube video that was nothing but eight hours of chirping crickets and various other soothing forest sounds.

Typically she slept like a baby.

Then an interesting thing happened; her cure for insomnia stopped working due to all the stresses that existed in her life.

Interesting is an interesting word. Most of the time it means something that stops short at being fascinating. In other cases it’s a nice way of saying crazy.

Gina was considered straddling that line. The way most people considered her interesting was, in and of itself, interesting. It will also be particularly interesting what they think of her latest attempt at getting to sleep when word inevitably gets out.

She again pitched a tent over her bed but then pretended that she was on top of a snowy mountain peak, trapped and in the midst of a terrible winter storm.

To sell herself on the scenario she cranked up her air conditioning all the way and blasted the sound of howling winds. Sort of interesting that there are people that make these videos and post them on Youtube in the first place.

The hiccup in Gina’s plan was the fact that she lived in a townhouse and the neighbors on either side of her did not appreciate being awakened in the middle of the night by the near-deafening sound of a violent storm.

Knocking on the wall, then her front door went unanswered, as did repeated phone calls. The volume of her state-of-the-art home entertainment center was just too loud.

So they called the police.

After fruitless attempt of contacting Gina the police were forced to let themselves into her home.

When the first officer poked his head inside her tent, Gina’s first thought was “I’m saved!” In her mind’s eye the officer appeared as a mountie. It was interesting given that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are not the ones typically rescuing trapped climbers. It was also interesting that Gina had him wearing a bearskin hat as opposed to the iconic mountie hat.

While the tall and furry hats worn by British queen’s guards are in fact made from bear, the more interesting thing to note is that the pelts come from bears harvested in Canada.

Without even knowing it, Gina was mixing metaphors and synchronicity in a very interesting way.

Unfortunately, a story can get bogged down by the interesting (if you find that interesting, please keep it to yourself).

Seeing Gina’s ‘relief’ at being rescued, the officer contacted the local mental health official to see if he could pop by and have a chat with the thankful ‘climber.’

The staff psychologist couldn’t believe his luck. “A mountie wearing the hat of a member of the queen’s guard you say?” he asked the policeman on the other end of the line. His heart raced. “Fascinating. I’ll be right there.”

After hurrying down to Gina’s house and speaking with her at length, the psychologist finally asked the most obvious question; “If you were having trouble falling asleep, why did you think convincing yourself that you were trapped on the top of a mountain in the middle a terrible storm would help?”

“Well, if I could really put myself on that mountain, and feel the fear and hopelessness of an individual in that situation, it wouldn’t matter if I was able to get to sleep. When the sun finally rose I’d just be happy to be alive.”

The psychologist stopped writing on his little pad, looked up at Garret and said “Interesting.”

Some months later they got engaged and moved to Vermont.