I have a close friend who's a psychiatrist, please don't read too much into that.

She mostly just teaches these days from a textbook that she wrote no less.

But back when she was still practicing, this friend's speciality was the treatment of specific phobias.

You know, patients with an irrational fear of heights or needles or spiders, stuff like that.

That's why I lovingly refer to her as Dr Scary, a nickname which she absolutely adores no matter

what that Lying Cow tells you.

One night when we were both, especially turned, I asked Dr Scary if she ever encountered a patient

with a phobia that managed to scare even her.

We were seated directly beside each other on the wooden bench swinging suspended from a back porch,

but Dr. Scary didn't look at me when she replied.

Her gaze remained fixed on the shadowy expanse of a well-manicured backyard, and she scoffed and slowly nodded.

And then she said,

The elevator people.

When this particular patient, a 39-year-old medical supply salesman,

who will call Simon, first showed up at Dr. Scary's office,

he had listed fear of Elevators as the reason why.

Needless to say, but if that was an accurate summation of Simon's issue, we wouldn't be here.

It all started almost a year prior while Simon was at a conference in Las Vegas.

He was there with his sales manager scoping out the latest innovations in pacemaker technology

and hoping to find a distributor willing to haggle. The trip really was all business too.

Simon had never been much for gambling and the live shows gave him a headache.

The conference might as well have been in voice for all he cared.

...