Insomnia? Boredom? Here's how to not solve either.

At home last night I felt the impending threat of insomnia. Your body tells you it needs to shut down and rest but your brain wants to know nothing of it. This clash between body and mind is a constant annoyance I’m sure many people can relate to. With me it’s a semi-permanent state of being. “Sleeping Without Pills” is how I’ve come to think of it.

This threat of sleeplessness was worsened by the fact that I was bored at 1:30 AM. How would one overcome both boredom and insomnia? One was easy; just do something, the other… well that would have to take care of itself.

I grabbed the car keys and made the 15 minute trek into town to a local nightclub named Midnights, definitely not one of my favourite places, but I figured that wearing my sobriety-goggles would offer a new perspective. What I found was a microcosm of what I believe to be today’s youth. Here’s what happened.

The entrance is built into the side of the building accessible by going along a small alleyway. Heading in, there was a guy passed out against the wall with his friend next him, elbows on knees. Two girls were sitting to the left back in a corner, one obviously upset and the other apparently frustrated at something on her cell phone, a bailed ride home most probably.

At the entrance: a skinny guy whom you pay for the luxury of entering and a burly bouncer standing close by studying the faces of those coming in and checking their wrist marks to make sure no chancers were trying to slip through. I paid my monies and as I held up my right wrist to be stamped for entrance the bouncer yelled at me through the excruciatingly loud music “Are you here to pick someone up?!?!” I looked at him shook my head and crossed the partition into the club.

The music’s volume intensified, becoming a grey buzz with the heavy bass that seemed like an infant not quite born yet; the speakers did not like the volume the either and was straining to produce a sound recognizable as music. I smiled to myself at that point as I remember thinking to myself that after consuming half the month’s food budget in alcohol any music would sound like… music at least.

Opposite from me was the bar, to my left the pool tables and to my right the dance floor. I made my way down the middle isle consciously lifting my feet as each step was opposed by the sticky layer of alcohol and broken glass on the tiled floors. The strobe lights, disco ball lights and random flashing lights weren’t in sync with the music or each other, or anything at all. They seemed to be having an orgy of their own, oblivious to the tribal dancing that they were lighting. I wonder how responsible adults could ever have considered Pokemon a valid epilepsy threat with these kinds of luminescent erotica in nightclubs.

The large wood bar that spanned the entire back wall of the place was just as sticky as the floor, this was the fault of one of the barlady who recklessly poured as many drinks in as short a period of time as she possibly could. A shooter glass over a row of drinking glasses, she upended the whiskey bottle pouring the whiskey into the shooter glass, into the drinking glass and so she went until it was time for the coke to be added. I stood back a bit, slightly revolted at all the stickiness that was being spread around.

I was slightly annoyed at the butch barlady, whose top seemed to want to crush her breasts through the cleavage hole, as she entertained a loud drunkard who repeatedly showed two fingers then one, two then one; congratulations guy, you’re 21 and a man now, get the fuck away so I can get a beer. He bought 2 shooters from a bottle I identified as Stroh Rum, 80% alcohol, she had to drink one and he drank one.

Eventually “Two And One” took his excitement somewhere else and I got my beer. I scanned the place through the mass of bodies on the dance floor and decided to situate myself in the back behind the dance floor. From there I could survey the entire club and drink my beer in peace.

The real fun started when I’d seated myself and lit my cigarette. Coming next; a nightclub as a microcosm for faulty youth.