interesting

Garrett is an interesting guy.

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

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

Typically he slept like a baby.

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

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

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

To sell himself on the scenario he cranked up his 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 Garrett’s plan was the fact that he lived in a townhouse and the neighbors on either side of him 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 his front door went unanswered, as did repeated phone calls. The volume of his state-of-the-art home entertainment center was just too loud.

So they called the police.

After fruitless attempt of contacting Garrett the police were forced to let themselves into his home.

When the first officer poked his head inside his tent, Garrett’s first thought was “I’m saved!” In his 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 Garrett 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, Garrett 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 Garrett’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 Garrett’s house and speaking with him 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 Garrett and said “Interesting.”

for Barb RIP