I work in finance so I'm very familiar with shorting but I don't know what you mean by "a sane way".
What way's sane or otherwise are you referring to?
Normally for shorting. you do the following: 1) borrow the stock from a broker 2) put in your short order 3) get your order filled 4) continue to pay a borrow each day for the stock you borrowed to short 5) buy back your stock 6) return the borrow and settle with your broker
