Second thoughts arrived on the first night. Voluntarily stuck in a portable storage shed – a donated 10x12 Tuff Shed – beneath the bell tower in downtown Orting, without heat, there in the dark Sunday, Kim Farnes asked herself what on earth she was doing.

Actually, she already knew the answer.

The idea for this escapade sparked three weeks before.

Things had not been going well for Orting, a rural and increasingly suburban city of 6,000 located between Puyallup, Mount Rainier and nowhere in particular.

First there was the ice and snow late last year, then the flooding, then the economy tanked and more recently the area grieved over a pair of particularly grisly and sad killings.

Farnes and her husband own the Around the Corner Cafe downtown, and she otherwise serves as director of the nonprofit Communities in Schools program, which offers mentoring and activities for students and seniors.

She gets a lot of ideas at night.

Three weeks ago, a friend and owner of a shop in town came to the cafe and said she’d lost her car because she could not continue making the payments. A few days before, another shop owner had lost both her car and her house.

“These are people who have helped me and helped other people,” Farnes said Tuesday, there in the shed. “I was trying to figure out what I could do. We’ve tried all these things, and as the economy worsens, it gets harder. I lay in bed, and my mind goes – it never stops thinking of things I can do.”

The inspiration – what she wrote on a pad there beside the bed – went something like this: “If I lived in a box, it might get some attention.”

A box, or maybe a tent. Or maybe a shed, like a big garden storage shed.

She would lock herself in and the people of Orting would try to find the key that would unlock the door.

Merchants would donate prizes, and every participating merchant would get a key that would be given to a special customer. Only one of the keys would unlock the shed. The customer with the right key would win the prizes donated by the merchants.

Win-win.

People would shop downtown. The economy would improve. People would see Kim Farnes locked into a shed there beside City Park and they might even smile as they passed by.

“I know it’s not the answer, but if it gets some attention, and people know that Orting is a great place to shop and visit, if that happens, it’s worth it.,” Farnes said.

But that first night was cold, she said. Lonely. Even scary, because it was so dark, although she knew there was nothing to be worried about. The town police knew she was there, and they regularly checked on her welfare.

The merchants – 29 that she contacted – had donated gifts. Bucky’s gave $50 cash and two oil changes, KeyBank and Frontier Bank each gave a promotional pack worth $25 and Timber Tavern gave two Timber Burgers with cheese and fries.

There were gift cards and garden baskets, toys and dinners, haircuts and fancy candles.

The total value of the prizes came to $1,872.65.

Tamara Potter of the Park Bench Cafe gave a crab feed for two.

“We think this is great – anything to create business in Orting,” she said on Monday. “It’s all part of being in a small town. Orting has been through some pretty tragic things this year. This has brought a lot of people out just to see what’s going on.”

Don Bunker, owner of Business Solutions Center, donated an outdoor speaker and a whiteboard valued at $200.

“I think it’s a great idea. Kim is a very creative person,” he said.

And early Tuesday afternoon he stopped by the shed and said hello through an open window. “Do you need anything?” he asked.

A shower, said Farnes.

She furnished the shed with a small couch, two chairs and a few stools. There’s a heater – borrowed from the city, and hooked up Monday – a radio, family pictures, and a cooler, although Farnes said she has been trying to avoid liquids as much as possible.

She was allowing herself a 10-minute break only every four hours, and she was taking those breaks at the library, the pharmacy, the quilt shop and in a facility at the park.

The first the days she spent her time writing a grant for Communities in Schools and organizing the announcements that will soon proclaim her daughter as a spring graduate of Orting High School.

People stopped by, some to try their keys and others just to say hello, or bring food – Mexican food, Chinese food, McDonald’s, pizza, mochas – or simply to offer encouragement or ask questions.

“I hope it helps,” Farnes said, early Tuesday afternoon, looking tired. “You always hope that what you do isn’t in vain. So many sad things have happened here – it would kill me to think that that’s what Orting is known for. This is just a start. I needed to do something and I just did it. This is what I came up with, but in the middle of the night, I do think, “What have I done?’”

She wishes, she said, “that people could see the Orting we all see. This is small-town America at its best.”

By late Tuesday afternoon it looked as if she would be stuck for another night within her self-imposed exile on Train Street.

So it seemed until a woman Farnes identified as Sandi Woodworth came along with two grandchildren. Woodworth has secured a key at the Wild Rose quilt shop, and the key turned in the lock.

“They were very happy,” Farnes said by phone.

So was Farnes.

“Yay! I get to shower!” she said.

“This would have been a lot harder in a tent.”

C.R. Roberts: 253-597-8535 c.r.roberts@thenewstribune.com