Emergency!

Two Cabinet Repairmen, Coming Up

By Lucky_Ladybug

Notes: The characters are not mine and this utter silliness is. The whole thing started with an in-joke about a character of mine so conceited he married his mirror, and it just went from there.

It really started out like an ordinary call. Johnny and Roy were in the squad one August afternoon when the radio came to life, delivering what seemed to be a normal message.

"Squad 51, injured man at the Ivory Convention Center, 326 Oakley."

Johnny grabbed the handset almost automatically. "Squad 51, Roger."

Roy frowned as he steered the squad in the direction of the convention center. "Isn't there some kind of bizarre gathering going on there this weekend?" he said.

Johnny shrugged. "I don't know. I never keep up with that stuff."

"You can say that again," Roy muttered.

Neither of them was prepared for the banner that stretched above the front doorway of the convention center.

". . . 'The Second Annual Inanimate Spouses Meet,'" Johnny read as Roy parked. He got out of the truck, gaping at the sign. "Roy . . . what do you think they're talking about?"

"I'm not sure you want to know," Roy replied flatly.

Johnny gave him a strange look. "Why? Why wouldn't I want to know? Roy?"

But Roy had no chance to answer.

The man at the door quickly let them through and into the main convention room. People were milling around the unusual amount of randomly placed furniture and other objects, seeming to continually float towards a fallen cabinet and scattered broken glass from one of its doors. One nearby woman was holding onto the arm of a sofa, her fingers curled around the edge. Another was kneeling amid the glass, seeming to be in horror.

"Excuse me, Ma'am, coming through," Johnny said, slipping past the woman with the couch in his haste to reach the other woman. "Ma'am? Are you badly hurt?"

She looked up with a start. "It's not me; it's my husband!" she exclaimed. "He had a terrible fall and needs a hospital right now!"

"Okay," Johnny said slowly. "Where is your husband?" And why aren't you with him, if you're not hurt? he couldn't help thinking to himself.

"Right here!" The woman impatiently patted the fallen cabinet next to her.

Johnny rocked back. "Uh . . . Ma'am, are you sure you didn't get hurt? Maybe you hit your head or . . ."

"No!" she snapped. "This is Jacob."

Roy came up from behind Johnny. "Ma'am, that's . . . that's a cabinet," he said uncomfortably.

"Well, of course he is!" the woman retorted. "Are you going to help him or not?!"

Johnny's jaw went slack. "You . . . you're trying to tell us you married a cabinet?! And you want us to help it?!"

Behind him, Roy was cringing. "Inanimate Spouses," he groaned. "It's a group of people who've married furniture and other . . . well, inanimate things."

Johnny spun to look at him. "This is a joke, right?" he said. "'Cause if it's a joke, I'm not laughing. I don't even think Chet would go this far."

"It's not a joke," Roy said, shaking his head. "Joann was just talking about it recently and saying it was hard to comprehend, that people would actually marry objects."

"You're telling me!" Johnny gasped. "Roy, these people belong in a psychiatric ward!"

"Maybe they do, but we can't pack up the whole convention and take them there," Roy said.

"So what are we supposed to do?!" Johnny exclaimed. "How do we give medical aid to a cabinet?!" He gestured wildly. "You know, there's real people out there in need of our help, and we're here taking a call about a busted cabinet!"

Roy held up a hand. "I'll handle this, Johnny." He stepped forward. "Ma'am, I think you should call a cabinet repairman," he said.

She frowned. "You're supposed to be paramedics! I called you to help my husband!"

"We are paramedics," Roy said calmly. "But we only treat people."

She scowled. "Well then, I guess I'll have to call a repairman. It's just that I didn't want Jacob to have to be moved by people who might be rough. I thought you'd be more gentle."

Roy was starting to feel very uncomfortable in this conversation. "I'm sure Jacob would handle it just fine," he said. "The repairmen know what they're doing."

"Okay, okay." Johnny stepped forward. "Look, we just need to know if any people were hurt when this glass broke."

"I was," said the woman by the couch. "But I was more worried about Bill."

"Bill?" Johnny was starting to look a little sick.

She indicated the couch. "My fiancé. I was hurt protecting him from Jacob's glass."

Johnny flinched. ". . . Well, why don't you just step over here and we'll treat you for the broken glass. Do you know if any of it got lodged in your skin?"

"It just cut me as it flew past," she said.

Johnny and Roy quickly tended to the superficial cuts on her arms and legs. And, after making sure that no one else had been injured by Jacob's glass, they wanted to immediately flee.

"Roy," Johnny hissed as they tried to walk away from the madness, "how are we going to explain this on the log?"

"I'm wondering how we're going to explain it anywhere," Roy replied. "The call was for an injured man."

"And now we have to tell them it was an injured cabinet." Johnny grimaced. "Hey, maybe we could say that the injured man was really an injured woman."

"Maybe," Roy said slowly, "but how will we explain it if the lady said Jacob on the phone?"

"We could say the dispatcher heard wrong," Johnny said in desperation. But he knew it could be checked easy enough; there would be a recording of the call.

Roy shook his head. "Face it, Johnny; we're just going to have to tell the whole story."

At that moment, a guy dragging a pole lamp nearly plowed into them. "Oh, sorry!" he exclaimed. "Lacey wasn't watching where we were going."

"Lacey," Roy repeated.

A nod. "My wife," the stranger said proudly.

"The lamp," Johnny said, seeking confirmation for what he still could not believe.

"Of course the lamp!" was the retort. "Do you see anyone else here?"

"Uh . . . no," Johnny said slowly. "The lamp. Sure." He started to try to slip away from the scene. "Well . . . have fun here. You and uh . . . Lacey."

"Thank you," the stranger beamed. "We are."

Roy hurried after Johnny. It wasn't often that either of them showed they were rattled, but under these circumstances it was impossible not to.

"Oh, what a lovely medical kit!" someone said from behind them.

Both of them froze and turned. An enthusiastic woman was coming towards them, her blonde ringlets bouncing against her shoulders.

"Is she your wife?" she asked Johnny.

Johnny just gaped. "My wife?!" he sputtered. "You think I'd marry a medical kit?!"

The woman took it all in stride. "If she's single, there's several men here looking for a bride," she babbled.

Johnny was at a complete loss for words. Roy had to come to his rescue. "Sorry, Miss," he said. "These kits are issued to us. We can't give them to anyone else."

"Of course." She sighed. "Oh well. And I guess you aren't selling your truck, either."

"Of course not!" Johnny cried.

"Well, you'd better tell those people out there looking it over," she warned.

"People?!" Johnny ran the rest of the way to the door. Through the glass panels, he could see—much to his horror—that several people were indeed examining the squad. Two had climbed into the back. One was on the roof. Two were in the cab, and one was patting the hood.

Instead of stopping to look, Roy pushed open the other door and dashed outside. Johnny immediately followed suit.

"Hey!" Johnny yelled.

Everyone looked up.

"This is a sweet ride," said the man at the hood. "Are you selling?"

"No," Roy said flatly. "And we need to take it now. Please, all of you, get away from the truck."

Reluctantly, they began to climb down. "Are you sure you won't sell?" the one from the roof pleaded. "She'd be a perfect wife."

"She's a perfect squad, and she's going to stay that way," Roy replied.

He and Johnny dove into the cab and Roy started the engine. It was difficult to keep from going over the speed limit as he pulled away from the curb and down the street.

Johnny slumped back in the seat. "Whew, am I glad to get away from that place," he declared.

Roy nodded. "Let's just hope that nobody else has any accidents around Jacob," he said.

"Or that Bill doesn't tip over and fall on somebody," Johnny muttered.

xxxx

They really wanted to never have to speak of the astonishing events again, and to never be reminded of the convention as long as they lived. But they had to think about it later that very day, when they delivered a drowning victim to Rampart. As they visited with Dixie for a few moments, an exhausted Dr. Brackett shuffled over to them.

"If that wasn't an experience," he groaned.

"Difficult patient?" Dixie asked, glancing over.

"To put it mildly." Kel leaned on the edge of the counter, looking to Johnny and Roy. "Have you two heard about that convention that's in town?"

Johnny shrugged. "There's usually more than one," he said.

"Why?" Roy queried.

Kel sighed. "Well, someone came in limping. Said a bookcase had fallen on his foot. So I checked him out, found it was bruised but not broken. Then, while a nurse was getting an icepack, the guy suddenly said that the X-Ray machine was everything he was looking for in a wife and would we sell it to him so he could marry it. He said he'd been dating a chair, a table, and most recently, a car phone, but none of them had struck him like the X-Ray machine had."

Dixie stared. "You're kidding."

"I wish I were," Kel exclaimed. "I tried to get a psychiatrist in there with him."

Johnny raised an eyebrow. "Tried?"

"One wouldn't come?" Roy said in disbelief.

"He came, alright, but he said the guy seemed to be of sound mind," Kel said, shaking his head. "He told me that there's a theory that people who are romantically interested in inanimate objects might just be looking for a companion that they don't have to worry will leave them."

"They're that afraid of getting their heart broke?" Johnny said in disbelief.

"At least some of them are," Kel sighed. "Or they've already had their heart broken too many times. I can't believe that's the explanation for all of them, though."

"I can," Dixie mused.

Kel ran a hand through his hair. "Well, in any case, I'm hoping that's the last I see or hear of anyone from the Inanimate Spouses group. I heard it got started when some narcissist married his mirror. Once he made such a big deal out of it, it got all these other people emboldened to come forward with marrying objects, too."

Johnny gave a low whistle. "Wow."

"That's unreal," Roy proclaimed.

"You're telling me," Kel groaned.

Dixie leaned on the counter. "What happened to the man wanting to marry the X-Ray machine?"

Kel shook his head. "After the psychiatrist had cleared him, there wasn't any real reason to keep him. I told him he could leave whenever he wanted. And I'm really hoping it's soon."

"We don't blame you," Johnny said.

"In the least," Roy added.

At that moment, a bewildered Dr. Early joined them. "Kel, there's a woman outside begging me to let her marry our marquee sign."

Kel spun around. "What?!"

Johnny and Roy exchanged a knowing look. "Well," Johnny drawled, "we'll just leave now. We don't want to hold you up in handling that important problem."

Roy nodded in agreement. "We'll see you later."

"Wait a minute!" Joe called after them. "Don't you want to see how this turns out?"

"We'll check in with you later," Roy promised.

Right now, they wanted to get to their squad before the woman or the man or anyone else from that convention noticed it.

Or before anyone from the convention recognized them.

xxxx

After dinner at the station, Johnny stared blankly at the page in the logbook. The information was there, just as it had come through via the original 911 call. Injured man.

He cringed. Should he just leave it as it was and no one would be the wiser? Should he take his own suggestion and say Injured woman? Or should he do what he was dreading and write the full truth—Call was a mistake; they needed a cabinet repairman?

"Hey, Gage, what gives?"

Johnny looked up with a start and an inward groan. Chet would have to appear right at this moment.

"Nothing," he said. "I'm . . . just making sure the day's calls all got written into the log."

"You're not usually so studious," Chet mused. "Could it be that you're wondering about one particular call?"

"Why would I be?" Johnny scoffed with a nervous grin.

Chet nodded and smiled, knowingly. "We saw you on the TV today. You were shooing prospective suitors away from the squad at the Inanimate Spouses convention."

Johnny flushed. "What?!" He leaped up, throwing the logbook on the counter. "We were being filmed?!"

Again Chet nodded, sagely. "You walked right into a news report one of the local stations was doing on the convention."

"Oh great." Johnny slapped his forehead in dismay.

"So what was it you were really going out there to treat?" Chet asked, crossing his arms on the top of a chair. "A chest of drawers? A vacuum cleaner?"

"A cabinet," Johnny mumbled in defeat. What was the use of denying it any longer?

"Ah, a cabinet." Chet smiled and picked up the logbook. "That will look great in here, preserved for all time and eternity."

Johnny straightened, staring at Chet in disbelief. "You wouldn't."

Chet regarded him with far too innocent eyes. "Well, the logbook is supposed to be accurate."

Johnny lunged without warning, falling across the table as Chet leaped away with the book. "Come back here, Chet!" Johnny yelled. He pushed himself up, immediately giving chase as Chet fled the main room. "If you don't bring that back, I'll be sure to set you up with a nice mop on a blind date!"

Captain Stanley stood near the couch, slack-jawed. ". . . Did he really say what I think he said?"

Roy gave a weary nod. "He really said it, Cap."

The Captain turned, giving Roy a weird look. "You must have really had a strange experience today."

"Tell me about it," Roy said flatly. "I think I'll find out if that convention will be back again next year. And if it will be, Johnny and I will see if we can arrange our days off when it's on."

He received a smile of amusement. "Now that's a good plan."

Roy listened for a moment as Johnny continued to chase Chet and yell about making Chet date a mop or a broom. "Yeah," he agreed. "A very good plan."