By Audrey W.
“You are so afraid of ‘em,” John Gage insisted as he and Chet Kelly walked into the locker room of Station 51, ready to begin a new shift.
“No I’m not.”
“Chet, I saw your reaction. And it had fear written all over it.”
John walked past his curious partner Roy DeSoto and stepped over to his own locker while Chet continued on to his.
“Written all over it? What’re you talking about? I was calm.” Chet opened his locker and began to unbutton his white civilian shirt.
“Calm? You call that calm?” The exasperated paramedic turned to face Roy. “Would you call turning to look this way and that, going ‘Where’d it go? Did you see where it went?’ calm?” he asked, mimicking the actions as he spoke.
But before Roy could answer, the younger man was already back at it with Kelly. “You were not calm.”
“I just asked, ‘Did you see where it went?’ because it ran by us so quick, I couldn’t see. . .well . . . where it went. But I was as cool as a cucumber.”
“Green as one maybe. . .”
“Oh now you’re really off.”
John once again addressed Roy. “That time the mouse was in the station and Chet wanted us to check the trap with him? I’ll bet it was because he’s afraid of mice. He’s got Musophobia.”
Chet opened his mouth to protest, then stopped himself to give the word thought. After a few seconds, he asked, “Isn’t Musophobia the fear of moose?”
“Mice.”
“But it sounds like it’s to do with a moose, and if that’s the case, you’re probably right. I wouldn’t wanna meet up with any moose in a dark alley. Those things are huge.”
John sighed and shook his head. Facing Roy, he commented, “You know, that I believe. He couldn’t even stand to run into a mouse in a brightly lit parking lot.”
“Gage.”
“Well, it’s true, Chet.” He then turned to Roy again, who still had yet to understand exactly what brought the subject up. “We were out on a double date last night and when it was time to leave the bowling alley, we walked with our dates to our cars. We were parked beside each other. . .and this mouse came running out from under my Land Rover and I swear, Roy, if Chet had his human fly shoes on, he’da been over to the building and halfway up the side before the rest of us knew what was going on.”
“Oh, c’mon. No way.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right, Chet,” John conceded. “I forgot, the shoes were a disaster. But if they did work. . .”
Chet scowled, then went on with getting changed while he tried to think of a way to get the dark-haired paramedic back for the exaggerated story. Suddenly he had an idea.
“Well, you’ve got dollarospendaterphobia.”
John stopped in mid tuck of his shirt tail and screwed up his face. “What? Chet, there’s no such thing. What’s it supposed to be, anyway?”
“The fear of spending more than a few dollars on a date.”
The dark-haired paramedic rolled his eyes and continued to tuck in his shirt as he once again faced his partner. “That’s the best he could come up with. . .?”
Dressed for duty himself, Roy closed his locker. “All I know is that you two are gonna give the rest of us maniaphobia if you keep this up.”
Both John and Chet looked puzzled.
“What’s that?” Chet finally asked.
“The fear of insanity – which is what we’ll be one of these days when we have to listen to the two of you trying to one-up each other all shift.” He then headed for the door that led to the apparatus bay.
The other two were quiet a moment, then looked at one another before eyeing the door Roy had just gone out of.
“Oh yeah?” John hollered.
“Careful. You’re liable to give him somethin’ else.”
“Like what?”
“Bad-come-back-a-phobia – and the name is self explanatory.”
John grumbled as he sat on the bench to put on his shoes, all the while trying to think of a good name for the fear of lousy made up titles for phobias.
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