I woke up last Saturday morning with 467 unread messages in my "Just the Boys" WhatsApp group chat.
"@AdamLee are you alive?" was one of those messages that popped up repeatedly as I scrolled through the list that Saturday morning.
Due to time difference, the boys are one and a half hours later than I am.
"Sorry... sleeping. Phone on vibration," I wrote, eager to report that rigor mortis hadn't set in, and that I hadn't died alone overseas in my sleep without anyone noticing.
"No wonder you didn't wanna take it out of your ass to look at the phone." Stanley my sex bunny friend wrote.
"It's 10:30am here... I haven't even had coffee... please... " I tapped as I walked out sleepily into my balcony.
One of the first things I do in the morning is to walk to the balcony - a habit I formed back home in Singapore.
I'd look out of my apartment, breathe in and feel thankful to be alive.
"Are you dead again @AdamLee?" Stanley typed, demanding I responded to both him and Carl.
I made coffee (black) and sat at the balcony, ready to catch up on life.
Indeed, I had a lot of catching up to do - 467 messages.
The drama - and theme - of the morning messages were messages.
Stanley had recently been seeing a guy.
Peter's kinda cute, according to Stanley.
He's 1.74m tall - just nicely and slightly taller than Stanley.
He's fair, has nice, large eyes, and a head full of puffy-wavy hair which could about describe any typical Korean star except that Peter really does look like one, so says Stanley.
The downside, says Stanley, is that he's a little on the heavy side. Literally heavy sides - Peter the Korean pop star has rich muffin tops.
"But beauty is only skin deep," Stanley would say.
"Speaking of skin," I began typing, "doesn't this Peter guy have some sort of hygiene problem down there?"
"@AdamLee, I forbid you to talk about my handsome K-Peter like that," Stanley typed, adding a gif of a plump Indian woman in a black sari with her palms by the sides of her temples wailing and shaking her head.
"Let's start off on a clean slate," Stanley suggested.
"I certainly look forward to that," I replied, smiling to myself as I took another sip of my black coffee.
The issue here is no longer about Peter's hygiene problem.
Stanley says the two of them get along really well - and that he's really beginning to like this Peter.
They first met when Stanley responded to Peter on Grindr and after a tryst, Stanley broke his first rule: He started dating his ONS.
The first date post-tryst was actually good.
The two met on late-Sunday morning, when Stanley accompanied Peter to the kid's section of Isetan to get Peter's 4-year-old niece a birthday present.
Then they did some adult shopping of their own, although with Stanley, that can also be interpreted in ways beyond a child's imagination.
The two then settled down at a Japanese restaurant where they quietly slurped ramen, and when Peter would cheekily wink at Stanley from across the table.
"That's good isn't it?" I typed.
"Yah, where's the ramen place?" Carl the dense one interjected.
Ignoring Carl, Stanley continued: "But here's where it starts going down."
"What's going down?" Carl asked sincerely, no doubt overwhelmed by both the volley of information and the burden of having to process multiple types of information.
"Who's going down," I asked, making sure Stanley wasn't about to take us on a ride - his type of ride.
"He stopped messaging," Stanley said.
Which explains why, when Peter stopped messaging Stanley, Stanley started messaging the group.
Stanley wanted comfort. Stanley wanted support. Stanley wanted answers.
Most of all, Stanley wanted made up answers.
"You guys think it's because he's busy?" he wrote in the group chat hopefully.
"'Cos I messaged him on a Sunday night at around 11.45pm. And he didn't reply. I mean, he could have been asleep. Then the next day, well, it's Monday.... who loves Mondays? So he must have been busy starting his day and week right?" Stanley wrote.
"And then I sort of paced myself and stopped messaging him good morning and how's your day by Thursday, because he DID NOT MESSAGE BACK FOR FIVE DAYS!" Stanley the insecure school girl told us.
"And it's all blue ticks, and he's online, and he doesn't reply me," Stanley said, the fonts of his WhatsApp message looking like they were wailing.
Carl aptly copied and pasted the gif of the plump Indian woman in black sari, wailing and shaking her head pitifully.
If we had been younger, I would have told Stanley all that he wanted to hear.
He's busy lah, don't be silly.
He's an exec right? Maybe he's out of town?
He'll write back lah, you're such a good catch.
But we're forty this year and this sort of puppy love has to be crushed.
We have to stop having hopes and start moving on.
"Stan," I wrote and paused - enough to preempt my broken-hearted friend that I'm about to say something hurtful but probably accurate.
Stanley reacted by copying and pasting the gif of the plump Indian woman.
Carl responded by posting a series of applauding hand icons.
"He's not interested," I said. "Move on".
Six more of the plump Indian woman wailing appeared in succession.
As we left a very hurt Stanley to recover from my wake-up message, I went on later to reflect on the message of messages.
It's very annoying to wait for a reply on WhatsApp.
Although technology has allowed us to communicate with people who're miles away, what we cannot force is the other party's reply and attention.
It's worse when your messages are blue-ticked.
No, what's worse is, when the other party you're talking to has disabled that blue-tick function, disallowing you to know if he's read it or not.
But why the need for an immediate reply?
If we're in such hurry to get an immediate response, shouldn't we be calling the other party after we send them annoyingly positive messages pasted against backdrops of flowers, rainbows, sunrises?
"Hi, hi! Sorry to call - I just want to check if you got all my 72 good morning messages which I have been forwarding you. I mean, cos, you didn't say good morning back."
But in this day and age, especially when we use a lot of technology to communicate, we have to go with the flow and learn the subtext of texts, or meanings of no-replies.
Especially at our age, when we're no longer sweet young things who could afford to waste our youths thinking about why that crush of ours hadn't replied.
If we do that at our age, we're bordering pathetic.
It's one thing to find out why that person isn't replying us.
It's another to realise that, the lag time in between replies is bothering us so much it's making us look like crazy ex-girlfriends.
What's more, in Stanley's case, the act of not replying him immediately is already very clear to outsiders like us.
If you've gone on a first date and you like that person, regardless of how busy you are, you would at least have the courtesy of replying.
"TTYL" wasn't invented for nothing, you know.
At our age, sad as it is, we're fighting against time.
We have to move on the double.
No reply, ok, next. Some reply, ok, let's hold on to him and see if things get better. Frequent replies, ok good - we're on the right track.
But we have to keep moving as we do this.
Time is ticking, I told Stanley privately later that day.
"And you have to move on," I typed to him channelling the severity of my tone.
"I have," he said, managing to channel defeat in his font.
"I've moved on - I've stopped refreshing my WhatsApp to see what time Peter's last online and no, he still hasn't replied, but no, I've stopped wanting him to reply," Stanley went on.
"I'm now stalking him on Facebook, Instagram to see what exactly he's so busy with that he cannot even reply me," Stanley said.
I responded by copying and pasting the gif of the wailing plump Indian woman.
---------------------------
Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people
Saturday 31 August 2019
Friday 23 August 2019
A Touch of Love
I want to migrate to China, Stanley said in the group chat "Just the Boys" the other day.
His inspiration stems from a recent BBC story which involved a China grandpa in New Zealand who was acquitted of pinching a boy's penis in a swimming pool toilet.
To support his immigration case, Stanley produced evidence in our group chat: A screen shot of the story that highlighted the vital bits.
"In China, tweaking a child's penis was a way of showing affection."
Carl the dense one responded by posting an emoji with a round, green face.
"I'm no child molester, but if that country sees tweaking penises as a way of showing affection, I would immediately be Miss Congeniality there," wrote Stanley, Miss Con-genitals.
"I'm gonna print this story out and keep it in my file which I'll name 'Penis Book of Records'," Stanley continued.
"But it would be such a sad thing if one day, the Sex Police comes to raid my house and instead of arresting me for possessing gay porn, they put me behind bars for compiling intellectual news stories about penises," said Stanley, who is on a roll.
Carl the dense one didn't reply.
Neither did I.
"But then again, if the Sex Police does come to my place to raid my house, they'll want to strip search me - before putting me behind bars. And then when I go to prison, it would be another exciting episode," Stanley went on, his imagination picking up speeds that have already breached danger levels.
I had to step in.
"Okay, okay, I have to work now, Stan... can you suppress your drama and your urge to fly to China to pinch penises and release them a bit later please?"
Carl responded with an emoji that showed a thumbs up.
Stanley replied with an emoji of a lone hand, curled up in a fist.
"Release I will," he last wrote.
After ploughing through tons of never-ending paper work, I took a coffee break and clicked on the story Stanley pasted in our group chat - just to make sure it wasn't fake news.
It wasn't.
I was intrigued by the news.
Not so much by the nature of the case, but by how it's caused me to think about culture and acceptance.
Obviously, some people in China find that okay.
Others - who perhaps come from another part of the world - would scowl at such norms.
But it did set me thinking about uncomfortable norms.
Surely, some clown in China must have started this trend and fellow clowns found it so amusing that they not only accepted it themselves but spread the trend.
And it got me thinking about establishing unique family trends that might make others uncomfortable.
Years ago, my university classmate Ming told me that she had visited her then-boyfriend's family in Australia.
The family had migrated from Malaysia to Down Under in the late 1990s.
While the family was very loving and welcoming of Ming, she was weirded out.
Because the family was too welcoming of her.
Apparently, the whole family has a habit of going to the local sauna together.
And they'd think nothing of seeing one another in the nude...
Ming was horrified at the prospects of seeing so many family jewels even before marrying her then-boyfriend.
When she told us, we too were horrified.
But the fact that Ming's then-boyfriend's family does this means it's a norm that they have come to embrace.
I began to look inwardly at my family to see if we have such uncomfortable norms.
As I forced my mind to visually fast-rewind to some forty years ago, I realised I had quite endearing memories with my siblings.
One of them was of my brother and I peeing together, and criss-crossing our stream of urine like they were Star Wars light sabres.
Stanley, who learned of this memory immediately pressed me for details, expressing explicit interest in the light sabres.
Another innocent playtime memory was with my sis.
As one of our invented games, I would blindfold Sis and place objects in her hands which she had to guess.
During one such game, I cheekily took off my shorts and lowered my scrotum in her hand.
Sis yelled at the top of her voice - startling mum who was ironing upstairs - when she finally gave up and took off her blindfold after she couldn't figure out what the hell she was touching.
I on the other hand laughed myself to death.
Stanley asked me cautiously later if we were 18 when we played those games.
And when we were younger - up till secondary school - we would happily walk around the house wearing just boxers, unless it was dinner time.
Somewhere along the lines, we grew older and felt it would be better to just cover up after all.
But my guess is, if we hadn't felt conscious, then this near-naked parading in the house would eventually become a family norm which I'm sure would scare off the boyfriends of our sisters who visit.
"I think I need to evaluate our friendship," Stanley later said to me, after learning about my childhood history.
Meanwhile, in a totally different household - my partner J's - there's also another type of family norm.
They're very affectionate.
Up till today, J's dad would bless J by drawing the sign of the cross on his forehead before he leaves home.
And when J's brothers visit, they will hug one another.
J's favourite older cousin - a very passionate, loving and expressive woman - would kiss him on the cheek every time they meet (the kiss is now extended to me as I'm seen as a family member too).
And whenever we have family meals at J's, we go through a ritual where, after grace is said, the younger ones would have to address the elders before tucking in.
For the sake of this blog topic, I pressed Carl and Stanley to think about their family norms.
Carl's family is a typical conservative Asian family where touching is almost never done to one another.
Stanley insists that family members who touch one another would almost always end up in court.
Carl obviously loves his parents, and vice versa.
But they don't express it verbally or physically, though in Carl's family, money does all the talking (Carl often showers his parents with gifts and takes them on expensive holidays).
Carl's parents, while never the type who explicitly tell their children they love them, show it with action.
Years ago, after Carl broke off with his then-boyfriend Ah Boy, he was so devastated that his concerned parents kept probing Carl to the point when he told them he was gay.
To his - and our - surprise, his traditional parents walked away without saying anything but the next day, his mum, while cooking, told Carl "if Ah Boy doesn't appreciate you, then find someone better."
Carl's dad, who was nearby, stoically nodded.
In Stanley's household, it's a different story.
It's filled with stories.
Stanley's mum, the formidable Mrs Monica Ong who sports her hair in a boldly cut bob and is a typical loud Peranakan nonya, always has friends and relatives over at their three-storey house.
His household is filled with the typical shrieks of laughter and good old fashioned Baba vulgarity.
To this day, Mrs Monica Ong still addresses her younger brother, Stanley's uncle, as "kotek".
That's Baba slang for penis, Stanley would say proudly.
And while Mrs Monica Ong is a modern nonya, Stanley's grandma isn't.
She would wear the kebaya at home and would stuff her hanky in her bra, taking it out once in a while to brandish at whomever she was gossiping with, or to sometimes dab her sweat.
Stanley admitted to having his face wiped by that said hanky as a kid.
"And," Stanley confessed, "I was 18 then."
---------------------------
Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people
His inspiration stems from a recent BBC story which involved a China grandpa in New Zealand who was acquitted of pinching a boy's penis in a swimming pool toilet.
To support his immigration case, Stanley produced evidence in our group chat: A screen shot of the story that highlighted the vital bits.
"In China, tweaking a child's penis was a way of showing affection."
Carl the dense one responded by posting an emoji with a round, green face.
"I'm no child molester, but if that country sees tweaking penises as a way of showing affection, I would immediately be Miss Congeniality there," wrote Stanley, Miss Con-genitals.
"I'm gonna print this story out and keep it in my file which I'll name 'Penis Book of Records'," Stanley continued.
"But it would be such a sad thing if one day, the Sex Police comes to raid my house and instead of arresting me for possessing gay porn, they put me behind bars for compiling intellectual news stories about penises," said Stanley, who is on a roll.
Carl the dense one didn't reply.
Neither did I.
"But then again, if the Sex Police does come to my place to raid my house, they'll want to strip search me - before putting me behind bars. And then when I go to prison, it would be another exciting episode," Stanley went on, his imagination picking up speeds that have already breached danger levels.
I had to step in.
"Okay, okay, I have to work now, Stan... can you suppress your drama and your urge to fly to China to pinch penises and release them a bit later please?"
Carl responded with an emoji that showed a thumbs up.
Stanley replied with an emoji of a lone hand, curled up in a fist.
"Release I will," he last wrote.
After ploughing through tons of never-ending paper work, I took a coffee break and clicked on the story Stanley pasted in our group chat - just to make sure it wasn't fake news.
It wasn't.
I was intrigued by the news.
Not so much by the nature of the case, but by how it's caused me to think about culture and acceptance.
Obviously, some people in China find that okay.
Others - who perhaps come from another part of the world - would scowl at such norms.
But it did set me thinking about uncomfortable norms.
Surely, some clown in China must have started this trend and fellow clowns found it so amusing that they not only accepted it themselves but spread the trend.
And it got me thinking about establishing unique family trends that might make others uncomfortable.
Years ago, my university classmate Ming told me that she had visited her then-boyfriend's family in Australia.
The family had migrated from Malaysia to Down Under in the late 1990s.
While the family was very loving and welcoming of Ming, she was weirded out.
Because the family was too welcoming of her.
Apparently, the whole family has a habit of going to the local sauna together.
And they'd think nothing of seeing one another in the nude...
Ming was horrified at the prospects of seeing so many family jewels even before marrying her then-boyfriend.
When she told us, we too were horrified.
But the fact that Ming's then-boyfriend's family does this means it's a norm that they have come to embrace.
I began to look inwardly at my family to see if we have such uncomfortable norms.
As I forced my mind to visually fast-rewind to some forty years ago, I realised I had quite endearing memories with my siblings.
One of them was of my brother and I peeing together, and criss-crossing our stream of urine like they were Star Wars light sabres.
Stanley, who learned of this memory immediately pressed me for details, expressing explicit interest in the light sabres.
Another innocent playtime memory was with my sis.
As one of our invented games, I would blindfold Sis and place objects in her hands which she had to guess.
During one such game, I cheekily took off my shorts and lowered my scrotum in her hand.
Sis yelled at the top of her voice - startling mum who was ironing upstairs - when she finally gave up and took off her blindfold after she couldn't figure out what the hell she was touching.
I on the other hand laughed myself to death.
Stanley asked me cautiously later if we were 18 when we played those games.
And when we were younger - up till secondary school - we would happily walk around the house wearing just boxers, unless it was dinner time.
Somewhere along the lines, we grew older and felt it would be better to just cover up after all.
But my guess is, if we hadn't felt conscious, then this near-naked parading in the house would eventually become a family norm which I'm sure would scare off the boyfriends of our sisters who visit.
"I think I need to evaluate our friendship," Stanley later said to me, after learning about my childhood history.
Meanwhile, in a totally different household - my partner J's - there's also another type of family norm.
They're very affectionate.
Up till today, J's dad would bless J by drawing the sign of the cross on his forehead before he leaves home.
And when J's brothers visit, they will hug one another.
J's favourite older cousin - a very passionate, loving and expressive woman - would kiss him on the cheek every time they meet (the kiss is now extended to me as I'm seen as a family member too).
And whenever we have family meals at J's, we go through a ritual where, after grace is said, the younger ones would have to address the elders before tucking in.
For the sake of this blog topic, I pressed Carl and Stanley to think about their family norms.
Carl's family is a typical conservative Asian family where touching is almost never done to one another.
Stanley insists that family members who touch one another would almost always end up in court.
Carl obviously loves his parents, and vice versa.
But they don't express it verbally or physically, though in Carl's family, money does all the talking (Carl often showers his parents with gifts and takes them on expensive holidays).
Carl's parents, while never the type who explicitly tell their children they love them, show it with action.
Years ago, after Carl broke off with his then-boyfriend Ah Boy, he was so devastated that his concerned parents kept probing Carl to the point when he told them he was gay.
To his - and our - surprise, his traditional parents walked away without saying anything but the next day, his mum, while cooking, told Carl "if Ah Boy doesn't appreciate you, then find someone better."
Carl's dad, who was nearby, stoically nodded.
In Stanley's household, it's a different story.
It's filled with stories.
Stanley's mum, the formidable Mrs Monica Ong who sports her hair in a boldly cut bob and is a typical loud Peranakan nonya, always has friends and relatives over at their three-storey house.
His household is filled with the typical shrieks of laughter and good old fashioned Baba vulgarity.
To this day, Mrs Monica Ong still addresses her younger brother, Stanley's uncle, as "kotek".
That's Baba slang for penis, Stanley would say proudly.
And while Mrs Monica Ong is a modern nonya, Stanley's grandma isn't.
She would wear the kebaya at home and would stuff her hanky in her bra, taking it out once in a while to brandish at whomever she was gossiping with, or to sometimes dab her sweat.
Stanley admitted to having his face wiped by that said hanky as a kid.
"And," Stanley confessed, "I was 18 then."
---------------------------
Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people
Saturday 17 August 2019
Face Value
During one of my trips back to Singapore recently, Carl announced some breaking news to me.
It was over supper at Swee Choon after we had made our rounds at Mustafa Centre for some mindless late night window shopping.
As we sat down at the indoor section of the dim sum eatery - still bustling at 2.30am with a clientele of hungry youngsters - Stanley took it upon himself to start the press conference.
"So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for making time to attend this very important press briefing about Mr Carl Chang," Stanley said, as he handed me and Carl a laminated copy of the menu each.
"The news is quite breaking," Stanley said, appointing himself as Carl's spokesperson.
"In fact, it's not only breaking, it also involves inserting, probing, and poking around with a tool," said Stanley, who has a talent for turning all things mundane into something scandalous.
Carl the dense one forced an awkward smile.
With his new short hairstyle which gave him bangs, coupled with his python-sized biceps and bulky frame, Carl ticks all the right boxes that make up a himbo.
Meanwhile, I started ticking all the right boxes to make up a hearty meal - making sure I ordered the eatery's signature deep fried mee suah, char siew bun, my favourite carrot cake, and chicken feet which only I will eat.
"Adam, pay attention, this is a matter of life and death," Stanley said dramatically, stressing the word death by switching to a raspy voice.
I looked up at Stanley and gave him an exaggerated firm nod and returned to my task.
With Stanley, I had learnt to ration my attention, given his penchant for theatrical openings whenever he has news to break.
My sex bunny friend Stanley loves beating around the bush - sometimes, even going as far as to beat someone else's bush.
But let me get to the point.
Carl has decided to get a nose job.
It's no surprise - Carl had on many occasions made that quite clear.
The press conference at Swee Choon merely reaffirms that - and sets out a timeline for his surgery.
It would not be done in Seoul as previously announced.
Instead, it'd be done at an aesthetic clinic at Paragon for a fraction of the price.
Months into Carl's decision, he had been doing some very serious research.
"Hey guys, watch this," Carl wrote in the WhatsApp group chat two months ago.
It was a YouTube link which opened up to some Thai reality show.
"This is called Let Me In," Carl typed, supplying us context for the first time in his life.
"It's a plastic surgery show - they give people free plastic surgery and they all become very beautiful," Carl explained.
Stanley immediately said he too watches video clips that lets people in - and they're all also beautiful people.
Curious to see what the heck this is all about, I clicked on the link too and despite not understanding a single word uttered on the show, I was hooked.
Stanley was too.
He was so wowed by the show that he made all his other friends watch it too.
In his words, the show turns Ugly Ducklings into Lovely Fucklings.
A typical episode would feature a guy or a girl, born with some form of deformity - which, in Thailand's case, always seems to be crooked or prolonged jaws or jagged teeth.
They then go to South Korea for major renovation and three months later, return to a studio in Thailand where they'd catwalk down an aisle with new clothes and a new face.
Carl was deeply inspired that, months into watching Let Me In, let himself go.
He called up South Korean plastic surgery clinics but realised that he could do it on home ground given that Singapore should be a safe enough place to go under the knife.
Plus, it'd be a fraction of the cost.
And so, Carl booked a slot to see the plastic surgeon in Paragon.
What I didn't know - which Stanley was about to say - was that Carl became increasingly obsessed with cosmetic surgery in recent weeks.
"I'm gonna spill some beans on Carl," said Stanley who also likes to spill his seeds on other men.
"Carl is annoying me to death with his plastic surgery obsession," Stanley said, rolling his eyes at Carl.
Our dense friend pouted and tried to look hurt.
Apparently, Carl had started commenting on everyone's facial features pointing out imperfections and how those can be fixed.
Watching Let Me In has turned Carl into a surgeon himself.
And to prove his point, there and then at Swee Choon, Carl pointed out that I will need major reworking on my face.
My cheekbones are okay, according to Dr Dense.
But I have an imperfect face because it's not asymmetrical.
Stanley threw his head backwards and groaned.
Then Carl asked me to put my forefinger to my lips as if I were a primary school kid made to silence myself.
The tip of my forefinger has to touch the tip of my nose, and it has to be pressed as close to my lips as possible while making sure the finger is perpendicular to the ground.
If there are no gaps when between the base of the forefinger and my chin, then I have a perfect face.
I did exactly as Carl instructed and found a gap of two fingers between my chin and the base of my forefinger.
Carl turned pale.
"You have an imperfect face," he said with a gasp, as if he had just discovered I had cancer of the chin.
"Stanley has a perfect face," Carl said with a beam, as if hoping to change that grim subject of my newly discovered imperfect face.
Stanley rolled his eyes towards the Swee Choon ceiling.
Carl says he himself has an imperfect face because he has around one-and-a-half finger spacing between his chin and his finger.
The way to fix this is to knock out two of your back teeth then push out the jaw line such that it can fill up the gap, Carl said seriously.
"Are you thinking of doing that?" I asked, with some fear in my tone.
"No," Carl said. "Not yet."
"My plastic surgeon says one thing at a time. We'll do the jaw after we fix the nose," he continued, making it look as if getting a new nose is as simple as a few mouse clicks on Taobao.
According to Carl's surgeon, Carl's oversized button nose would be fixed first.
He would shave off a large bulk of the bulb of Carl's nose and then give his nose some height.
That would help bring out Carl's features.
And then, Carl can sign up for other facial renovation.
For the rest of the supper, Carl couldn't stop putting his forefinger against his lips to measure the gap as if his chin would shift forward on its on with the passage of time.
Stanley later said Carl was beyond hope.
"I remember horsing around as a kid with my fellow primary school classmates," Stanley said.
"And I swear measuring body parts with fingers was way more fun back then, compared to Carl's method."
---------------------------
Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people
It was over supper at Swee Choon after we had made our rounds at Mustafa Centre for some mindless late night window shopping.
As we sat down at the indoor section of the dim sum eatery - still bustling at 2.30am with a clientele of hungry youngsters - Stanley took it upon himself to start the press conference.
"So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for making time to attend this very important press briefing about Mr Carl Chang," Stanley said, as he handed me and Carl a laminated copy of the menu each.
"The news is quite breaking," Stanley said, appointing himself as Carl's spokesperson.
"In fact, it's not only breaking, it also involves inserting, probing, and poking around with a tool," said Stanley, who has a talent for turning all things mundane into something scandalous.
Carl the dense one forced an awkward smile.
With his new short hairstyle which gave him bangs, coupled with his python-sized biceps and bulky frame, Carl ticks all the right boxes that make up a himbo.
Meanwhile, I started ticking all the right boxes to make up a hearty meal - making sure I ordered the eatery's signature deep fried mee suah, char siew bun, my favourite carrot cake, and chicken feet which only I will eat.
"Adam, pay attention, this is a matter of life and death," Stanley said dramatically, stressing the word death by switching to a raspy voice.
I looked up at Stanley and gave him an exaggerated firm nod and returned to my task.
With Stanley, I had learnt to ration my attention, given his penchant for theatrical openings whenever he has news to break.
My sex bunny friend Stanley loves beating around the bush - sometimes, even going as far as to beat someone else's bush.
But let me get to the point.
Carl has decided to get a nose job.
It's no surprise - Carl had on many occasions made that quite clear.
The press conference at Swee Choon merely reaffirms that - and sets out a timeline for his surgery.
It would not be done in Seoul as previously announced.
Instead, it'd be done at an aesthetic clinic at Paragon for a fraction of the price.
Months into Carl's decision, he had been doing some very serious research.
"Hey guys, watch this," Carl wrote in the WhatsApp group chat two months ago.
It was a YouTube link which opened up to some Thai reality show.
"This is called Let Me In," Carl typed, supplying us context for the first time in his life.
"It's a plastic surgery show - they give people free plastic surgery and they all become very beautiful," Carl explained.
Stanley immediately said he too watches video clips that lets people in - and they're all also beautiful people.
Curious to see what the heck this is all about, I clicked on the link too and despite not understanding a single word uttered on the show, I was hooked.
Stanley was too.
He was so wowed by the show that he made all his other friends watch it too.
In his words, the show turns Ugly Ducklings into Lovely Fucklings.
A typical episode would feature a guy or a girl, born with some form of deformity - which, in Thailand's case, always seems to be crooked or prolonged jaws or jagged teeth.
They then go to South Korea for major renovation and three months later, return to a studio in Thailand where they'd catwalk down an aisle with new clothes and a new face.
Carl was deeply inspired that, months into watching Let Me In, let himself go.
He called up South Korean plastic surgery clinics but realised that he could do it on home ground given that Singapore should be a safe enough place to go under the knife.
Plus, it'd be a fraction of the cost.
And so, Carl booked a slot to see the plastic surgeon in Paragon.
What I didn't know - which Stanley was about to say - was that Carl became increasingly obsessed with cosmetic surgery in recent weeks.
"I'm gonna spill some beans on Carl," said Stanley who also likes to spill his seeds on other men.
"Carl is annoying me to death with his plastic surgery obsession," Stanley said, rolling his eyes at Carl.
Our dense friend pouted and tried to look hurt.
Apparently, Carl had started commenting on everyone's facial features pointing out imperfections and how those can be fixed.
Watching Let Me In has turned Carl into a surgeon himself.
And to prove his point, there and then at Swee Choon, Carl pointed out that I will need major reworking on my face.
My cheekbones are okay, according to Dr Dense.
But I have an imperfect face because it's not asymmetrical.
Stanley threw his head backwards and groaned.
Then Carl asked me to put my forefinger to my lips as if I were a primary school kid made to silence myself.
The tip of my forefinger has to touch the tip of my nose, and it has to be pressed as close to my lips as possible while making sure the finger is perpendicular to the ground.
If there are no gaps when between the base of the forefinger and my chin, then I have a perfect face.
I did exactly as Carl instructed and found a gap of two fingers between my chin and the base of my forefinger.
Carl turned pale.
"You have an imperfect face," he said with a gasp, as if he had just discovered I had cancer of the chin.
"Stanley has a perfect face," Carl said with a beam, as if hoping to change that grim subject of my newly discovered imperfect face.
Stanley rolled his eyes towards the Swee Choon ceiling.
Carl says he himself has an imperfect face because he has around one-and-a-half finger spacing between his chin and his finger.
The way to fix this is to knock out two of your back teeth then push out the jaw line such that it can fill up the gap, Carl said seriously.
"Are you thinking of doing that?" I asked, with some fear in my tone.
"No," Carl said. "Not yet."
"My plastic surgeon says one thing at a time. We'll do the jaw after we fix the nose," he continued, making it look as if getting a new nose is as simple as a few mouse clicks on Taobao.
According to Carl's surgeon, Carl's oversized button nose would be fixed first.
He would shave off a large bulk of the bulb of Carl's nose and then give his nose some height.
That would help bring out Carl's features.
And then, Carl can sign up for other facial renovation.
For the rest of the supper, Carl couldn't stop putting his forefinger against his lips to measure the gap as if his chin would shift forward on its on with the passage of time.
Stanley later said Carl was beyond hope.
"I remember horsing around as a kid with my fellow primary school classmates," Stanley said.
"And I swear measuring body parts with fingers was way more fun back then, compared to Carl's method."
---------------------------
Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people
Saturday 10 August 2019
Say Cheese!
Let's talk about something cheesy today.
It's inspired by the other night, when Stanley, Carl and I went to Wine Connection at Robertson Quay - during one of my week-long breaks back to Singapore.
Carl had recently developed a liking for cheese after being introduced to Camembert by one of his colleagues, and was so thrilled by the taste he insisted we ate wine and cheese that night.
Funny it took Carl so long to appreciate cheese given that in his younger days, he had studied French.
But it's flawed logic, of course.
Just because Carl speaks fluent French doesn't mean he must love Camembert.
Just like how Stanley doesn't eat samblal belacan with his cereal every morning just because he speaks fluent Malay, given his Peranakan heritage.
"But I do love to tumbuk tumbuk belacan all the time," Stanley interjected, making a rapid, obscene hand gesture to explain that "tumbuk" actually means to pound - the mortar and pestle way.
But I digress.
Let's get back to the cheese.
"This is the hard cheese, this is the soft cheese, and this is blue cheese," our short waitress said in a sing-song manner, no doubt a phrase she delivers every time she presents a cheese platter along with a large basket of bread and crackers to customers.
"Of the three types, I instantly love two of them already," Stanley said picking up his fork.
"The third type, I suggest Carl doesn't touch," Stanley continued, making an unnecessary jibe at Carl who recently revealed to us he had Erectile Dysfunction and had begun eating viagra.
"Speaking of which," Stanley raised both his eyebrows and stared at Carl's nether region with interest, and said in a creepy childlike voice like he's talking to a baby, "how's our li'l friend doooooooooing? Coochie coochie cooo...."
Carl our dense friend protectively put both hands in front of his crotch and looked like he wanted to cry.
"Leave Carl and Carl Junior alone," I snapped as I cut up one of the cheeses for both Stanley and Carl.
The wine of the night was a bottle named Very Sexy Shiraz, which, when our short waitress recommended, triggered Stanley to clap and cheer merrily as if he had found the love of his life.
"I can die in peace," Stanley the drama queen declared.
"Tonight, all my favourite things are at this table - Adam, Carl, this bottle of Sex, the hard and blue cheese, and that large basket of goodies," Stanley said, pointing not to the bread and crackers, but instead, at a nearby young and lean waiter in jeans so tight that Stanley couldn't breathe.
As we dug into the cheese, Stanley was reminded of a very apt topic.
"What do you guys think about dick cheese," he asked, licking the last morsel of his Camembert off his fingers.
Carl set his fork down, closed his eyes and pressed one fist tightly against his mouth.
"What? Don't blame me - blame Carl. He was the one the who wanted to eat cheese," Stanley said, working up some emotion for the soliloquy playing in his head.
"You can't blame me. I'm a quick thinker. Things trigger my memory," Stanley said in his defence.
Actually, Stanley is right.
Our sex bunny friend is also very random at times.
Very often, he would blurt out something out of the blue just because something he saw or something someone said reminded him of a random event, which in almost all cases, were related to sex.
Typically, those reminders would pop up at Cold Storage Holland Village - our routine to end the night if we hung out at HV.
We'd be strolling along the fresh food section when Stanley would randomly pick up a banana and say "Charles from last week," or a fresh peach and say "this reminds me of a poodle's vagina," or a particularly wrinkled lime and say "is it me or does this look like scrotum?"
Again, I digress.
Let's get back to the cheese.
"Anyway," Stanley continued, cutting up another portion of Camembert, placing it on his forefinger.
"This, ladies and gentlemen, is Peter, aka HornyExec," Stanley explained almost too proudly.
Carl had by then switched to eating pure carbs, grapes, raisins, olives... anything but the cheeses which he had loved so much some five minutes ago.
According to Stanley, his one-night-stand partner who was indeed an executive and indeed very horny, had all it takes to be a young model.
He's tall, lean, has a thick head of hair which he had permed and parted sideways like a Korean superstar.
He has just a little bit of a flabby tummy but that's okay, Stanley said.
"What's NOT okay," Stanley's tone took a turn for Anger Lane, "is that he had dick cheese!"
Our short waitress paused in her tracks and asked Stanley cheerfully, "did you want more cheese?"
Stanley turned towards Strawberry Shortcake, smiled, and said "definitely not".
Back to Peter.
Stanley said he was so happy to have struck gold with this HornyExec but when he knelt down and was about to have his cake and eat it, ate cheese instead.
"Eeeeeewwwww," Carl and I both reacted in unison.
It was such an unsavoury topic that the both of us had to lean in and wait for more details to unfold.
And so, Stanley unfolded.
What he found, when he pulled back HornyExec's foreskin, was a layer of dick cheese which was the amount of Camembert Stanley currently had on his forefinger.
Enthralled, Carl and I asked... "then what did you do?"
In response, Stanley put his entire finger of cheese in his mouth, licked off the curdled dairy, smiled and looked at us.
"Eeeeeeeewwww," Carl and I both reacted in unison.
Carl pushed the cheese platter towards Stanley and took several gulps of Very Sexy Shiraz to drown his sorrows.
As we ordered our second bottle of Very Sexy Shiraz, I harped on HornyExec.
How on earth is it that some men can be so damn dirty, I demanded.
Don't people have basic hygiene?
Stanley merely shrugged.
Carl gazed into the distance, no doubt suffering from PTSD.
People who bother to change their nicks to Horny-something would more or less expect action, right, I ask the table though effectively I only have Stanley as audience.
So wouldn't they do some housekeeping at least?
Again, Stanley merely shrugged.
So, what's the deal breaker for you guys, I ask the table, snapping my fingers several times in front of Carl, hoping to wake him up from his self-inflicted hypnosis.
Can we accept BO?
Can we accept bad breath?
Can we accept dick cheese?
Carl shook his head violently at that thought.
Yeah, thought so. Me too, I said.
Stanley sheepishly said, my answer is not A, B, or C, but D - none of the above. I can take all three. In fact, I have taken all three.
"What... I am all loving, all encompassing," Stanley said defensively, looking guilty for literally being a dirty slut.
"Besides, you can't catch bad hygiene. Only STD," Stanley reasoned.
Just as I suggested changing the topic, Stanley said: "Well... the reason I raised this topic is...."
Carl and I turned to Stanley and waited.
"I'm actually kinda seeing HornyExec now."
"Eeeeeeeewwwww," Carl and I said in unison.
---------------------------
Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people
It's inspired by the other night, when Stanley, Carl and I went to Wine Connection at Robertson Quay - during one of my week-long breaks back to Singapore.
Carl had recently developed a liking for cheese after being introduced to Camembert by one of his colleagues, and was so thrilled by the taste he insisted we ate wine and cheese that night.
Funny it took Carl so long to appreciate cheese given that in his younger days, he had studied French.
But it's flawed logic, of course.
Just because Carl speaks fluent French doesn't mean he must love Camembert.
Just like how Stanley doesn't eat samblal belacan with his cereal every morning just because he speaks fluent Malay, given his Peranakan heritage.
"But I do love to tumbuk tumbuk belacan all the time," Stanley interjected, making a rapid, obscene hand gesture to explain that "tumbuk" actually means to pound - the mortar and pestle way.
But I digress.
Let's get back to the cheese.
"This is the hard cheese, this is the soft cheese, and this is blue cheese," our short waitress said in a sing-song manner, no doubt a phrase she delivers every time she presents a cheese platter along with a large basket of bread and crackers to customers.
"Of the three types, I instantly love two of them already," Stanley said picking up his fork.
"The third type, I suggest Carl doesn't touch," Stanley continued, making an unnecessary jibe at Carl who recently revealed to us he had Erectile Dysfunction and had begun eating viagra.
"Speaking of which," Stanley raised both his eyebrows and stared at Carl's nether region with interest, and said in a creepy childlike voice like he's talking to a baby, "how's our li'l friend doooooooooing? Coochie coochie cooo...."
Carl our dense friend protectively put both hands in front of his crotch and looked like he wanted to cry.
"Leave Carl and Carl Junior alone," I snapped as I cut up one of the cheeses for both Stanley and Carl.
The wine of the night was a bottle named Very Sexy Shiraz, which, when our short waitress recommended, triggered Stanley to clap and cheer merrily as if he had found the love of his life.
"I can die in peace," Stanley the drama queen declared.
"Tonight, all my favourite things are at this table - Adam, Carl, this bottle of Sex, the hard and blue cheese, and that large basket of goodies," Stanley said, pointing not to the bread and crackers, but instead, at a nearby young and lean waiter in jeans so tight that Stanley couldn't breathe.
As we dug into the cheese, Stanley was reminded of a very apt topic.
"What do you guys think about dick cheese," he asked, licking the last morsel of his Camembert off his fingers.
Carl set his fork down, closed his eyes and pressed one fist tightly against his mouth.
"What? Don't blame me - blame Carl. He was the one the who wanted to eat cheese," Stanley said, working up some emotion for the soliloquy playing in his head.
"You can't blame me. I'm a quick thinker. Things trigger my memory," Stanley said in his defence.
Actually, Stanley is right.
Our sex bunny friend is also very random at times.
Very often, he would blurt out something out of the blue just because something he saw or something someone said reminded him of a random event, which in almost all cases, were related to sex.
Typically, those reminders would pop up at Cold Storage Holland Village - our routine to end the night if we hung out at HV.
We'd be strolling along the fresh food section when Stanley would randomly pick up a banana and say "Charles from last week," or a fresh peach and say "this reminds me of a poodle's vagina," or a particularly wrinkled lime and say "is it me or does this look like scrotum?"
Again, I digress.
Let's get back to the cheese.
"Anyway," Stanley continued, cutting up another portion of Camembert, placing it on his forefinger.
"This, ladies and gentlemen, is Peter, aka HornyExec," Stanley explained almost too proudly.
Carl had by then switched to eating pure carbs, grapes, raisins, olives... anything but the cheeses which he had loved so much some five minutes ago.
According to Stanley, his one-night-stand partner who was indeed an executive and indeed very horny, had all it takes to be a young model.
He's tall, lean, has a thick head of hair which he had permed and parted sideways like a Korean superstar.
He has just a little bit of a flabby tummy but that's okay, Stanley said.
"What's NOT okay," Stanley's tone took a turn for Anger Lane, "is that he had dick cheese!"
Our short waitress paused in her tracks and asked Stanley cheerfully, "did you want more cheese?"
Stanley turned towards Strawberry Shortcake, smiled, and said "definitely not".
Back to Peter.
Stanley said he was so happy to have struck gold with this HornyExec but when he knelt down and was about to have his cake and eat it, ate cheese instead.
"Eeeeeewwwww," Carl and I both reacted in unison.
It was such an unsavoury topic that the both of us had to lean in and wait for more details to unfold.
And so, Stanley unfolded.
What he found, when he pulled back HornyExec's foreskin, was a layer of dick cheese which was the amount of Camembert Stanley currently had on his forefinger.
Enthralled, Carl and I asked... "then what did you do?"
In response, Stanley put his entire finger of cheese in his mouth, licked off the curdled dairy, smiled and looked at us.
"Eeeeeeeewwww," Carl and I both reacted in unison.
Carl pushed the cheese platter towards Stanley and took several gulps of Very Sexy Shiraz to drown his sorrows.
As we ordered our second bottle of Very Sexy Shiraz, I harped on HornyExec.
How on earth is it that some men can be so damn dirty, I demanded.
Don't people have basic hygiene?
Stanley merely shrugged.
Carl gazed into the distance, no doubt suffering from PTSD.
People who bother to change their nicks to Horny-something would more or less expect action, right, I ask the table though effectively I only have Stanley as audience.
So wouldn't they do some housekeeping at least?
Again, Stanley merely shrugged.
So, what's the deal breaker for you guys, I ask the table, snapping my fingers several times in front of Carl, hoping to wake him up from his self-inflicted hypnosis.
Can we accept BO?
Can we accept bad breath?
Can we accept dick cheese?
Carl shook his head violently at that thought.
Yeah, thought so. Me too, I said.
Stanley sheepishly said, my answer is not A, B, or C, but D - none of the above. I can take all three. In fact, I have taken all three.
"What... I am all loving, all encompassing," Stanley said defensively, looking guilty for literally being a dirty slut.
"Besides, you can't catch bad hygiene. Only STD," Stanley reasoned.
Just as I suggested changing the topic, Stanley said: "Well... the reason I raised this topic is...."
Carl and I turned to Stanley and waited.
"I'm actually kinda seeing HornyExec now."
"Eeeeeeeewwwww," Carl and I said in unison.
---------------------------
Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people
Saturday 3 August 2019
Supplementary Questions
The question of supplements came up during dinner with Stanley and Carl the other night.
It all began with a seemingly casual question.
"Do you guys eat supplements?" Carl our dense friend slash gym rabbit asked.
Of course.
For me, my supplement-eating journey began when I was a kid.
I was a rather sickly child so I remember having to eat vitamin C (in the form of sweets - yummy!) as well as cod liver oil (in whitish, liquid form - yucky!) for the longest time.
There were also home cooked supplements in the form of food.
Like chopped liver and pig's brain soup (I kid you not).
When I was a teenager, my mum added essence of chicken and bird's nest to the mix to help me get better results.
In NS and uni, I weaned off eating supplements.
I felt free.
Then my pill-popping habit peaked again in my mid-twenties when I started working because I was constantly exhausted by work, and felt weak and fell sick all the time.
But my vitamin variety pales in comparison to Stanley's.
According to Stanley the Swallower, his daily dose of pills comprises the following:
"Hunny, I can swallow them all at one go. I don't have gag reflex and that's a talent," he said to me.
"And you can quote me," he emphasised, eager for the virtual world to learn of his gift.
Carl our dense friend shifted in his seat.
He set his fork down and, looking like he was about to have a mini seizure, opened his mouth and uttered words that would soon spike the gay force field surrounding table 63 of ABC market.
Stanley reacted by letting out a high-octave yelp which, if he had tried harder, would reach a pitch which only God, dogs and dolphins can hear.
The colour in Carl's face drained.
"Please, please, please keep it down, Stan," Carl begged.
Stanley couldn't help himself.
So he bounced on his seat and used both his hands to cover his mouth, hoping that that very action could prevent a second faerie explosion.
Carl looked to me for help.
I didn't know how to react.
But between a serious and concerned face and letting myself go, I chose the latter and let out the first few sounds of a laugh, before Stanley took the cue and released his hands, unleashing a very hearty throttle.
We laughed for a good two minutes until we teared.
Stanley raised his hand as if to surrender and using his other hand, wiped his tears and saliva.
Carl slumped his shoulders, his python-sized biceps pulsating in disappointment.
Even as dozens of heads belonging to evening diners made up of wholesome family units had turned in our direction, Stanley couldn't care.
Our dense friend had just told us that evening's most ridiculous revelation that we had to take a moment to digest it.
Later, Stanley cleared his throat and switched to all-serious mode, looked Carl in the eye, and told him: "Carl dear. Thank you for being so brave. I'm sorry - we're sorry - for being such insensitive fools."
"It's absolutely okay to eat viagra as a night supplement. It's not easy. It must be hard on you," Stanley said, before his facial expression quivered and his voice broke, unleashing another round of violent giggles which he tried very hard to suppress.
Carl the hobbyist weight lifter had confessed to us not too long ago that he felt he could have erectile dysfunction (read it here).
But we didn't really follow up with him.
"Sorry, Carl dear," Stanley said, this time holding Carl's hand and looking very earnest as if to make amends.
"We should have checked in on you after that Swee Choon night, but you can't blame us because," Stanley paused to clear his throat, then continued meekly: "you never really brought it up again".
And then, Stanley fully let himself go, as if he were a fully blown, untied balloon that was accidentally let loose by the careless hand of a child, and for the third time of the night, laughed himself to death.
Don't get us wrong.
We are indeed supportive of Carl.
"Yes, yes, Carl, we love you. We love you to bits," Stanley said, still laughing. "We love you to micro bits" he added amid his guffaw, no doubt a step closer to death by laughter.
Carl pouted and looked like he wanted to cry.
"Ok, ok, enough," Stanley the solo actor of the hour said.
"Don't make Carl angry... wait he pop the viagra pill and turn into Captain Kukujiao and beat you with his iron rod then you know," Stanley said in between giggles, suddenly talking like a primary school bully.
But in all seriousness - because ED is nothing to laugh about, and viagra is not exactly cheap according to Carl - we calmed down to address this issue... two hours later.
As we sat in Stanley's car - where many serious life conversations were heard - Carl confessed to us that he chose viagra as an option because he couldn't give up taking steroids for his weight lifting.
As we sat in the car thinking about Carl's member, Stanley wondered out loud if we would one day see our own organ failure.
"Eh, Carl... it really works?" Stanley asked.
"Show us leh, show us leh," Stanley teased, urging Carl to immediately pop his supplement.
For the first time that night, our dense friend snapped back.
"Stanley darling, even if I were to pop 10 viagra pills, if it's you I'm facing, then the penis will never get hard," Carl said, imitating Stanley's tone of voice.
Not to be outdone, Stanley returned the favour.
"My, my. Viagra really promotes blood flow to the brain."
---------------------------
Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people
It all began with a seemingly casual question.
"Do you guys eat supplements?" Carl our dense friend slash gym rabbit asked.
Of course.
For me, my supplement-eating journey began when I was a kid.
I was a rather sickly child so I remember having to eat vitamin C (in the form of sweets - yummy!) as well as cod liver oil (in whitish, liquid form - yucky!) for the longest time.
There were also home cooked supplements in the form of food.
Like chopped liver and pig's brain soup (I kid you not).
When I was a teenager, my mum added essence of chicken and bird's nest to the mix to help me get better results.
In NS and uni, I weaned off eating supplements.
I felt free.
Then my pill-popping habit peaked again in my mid-twenties when I started working because I was constantly exhausted by work, and felt weak and fell sick all the time.
But my vitamin variety pales in comparison to Stanley's.
According to Stanley the Swallower, his daily dose of pills comprises the following:
- Multivitamins ("anything that's multiple is always good")
- Gluccosamine ("for my knees, hunny - on some nights I have to be on all fours")
- Melatonin ("to help me wind down, and help me sleep")
- Meta B ("to help me stay alert and help me sleep... around")
- Milk thistle ("a girl needs to protect her liver from all the excessive drinking")
- Multi-Level Marketing product called Tea Green ("in this case, I swallow simply because a friend insists it's good and when Stanley is asked to swallow, Stanley swallows").
"Hunny, I can swallow them all at one go. I don't have gag reflex and that's a talent," he said to me.
"And you can quote me," he emphasised, eager for the virtual world to learn of his gift.
Carl our dense friend shifted in his seat.
He set his fork down and, looking like he was about to have a mini seizure, opened his mouth and uttered words that would soon spike the gay force field surrounding table 63 of ABC market.
Stanley reacted by letting out a high-octave yelp which, if he had tried harder, would reach a pitch which only God, dogs and dolphins can hear.
The colour in Carl's face drained.
"Please, please, please keep it down, Stan," Carl begged.
Stanley couldn't help himself.
So he bounced on his seat and used both his hands to cover his mouth, hoping that that very action could prevent a second faerie explosion.
Carl looked to me for help.
I didn't know how to react.
But between a serious and concerned face and letting myself go, I chose the latter and let out the first few sounds of a laugh, before Stanley took the cue and released his hands, unleashing a very hearty throttle.
We laughed for a good two minutes until we teared.
Stanley raised his hand as if to surrender and using his other hand, wiped his tears and saliva.
Carl slumped his shoulders, his python-sized biceps pulsating in disappointment.
Even as dozens of heads belonging to evening diners made up of wholesome family units had turned in our direction, Stanley couldn't care.
Our dense friend had just told us that evening's most ridiculous revelation that we had to take a moment to digest it.
Later, Stanley cleared his throat and switched to all-serious mode, looked Carl in the eye, and told him: "Carl dear. Thank you for being so brave. I'm sorry - we're sorry - for being such insensitive fools."
"It's absolutely okay to eat viagra as a night supplement. It's not easy. It must be hard on you," Stanley said, before his facial expression quivered and his voice broke, unleashing another round of violent giggles which he tried very hard to suppress.
Carl the hobbyist weight lifter had confessed to us not too long ago that he felt he could have erectile dysfunction (read it here).
But we didn't really follow up with him.
"Sorry, Carl dear," Stanley said, this time holding Carl's hand and looking very earnest as if to make amends.
"We should have checked in on you after that Swee Choon night, but you can't blame us because," Stanley paused to clear his throat, then continued meekly: "you never really brought it up again".
And then, Stanley fully let himself go, as if he were a fully blown, untied balloon that was accidentally let loose by the careless hand of a child, and for the third time of the night, laughed himself to death.
Don't get us wrong.
We are indeed supportive of Carl.
"Yes, yes, Carl, we love you. We love you to bits," Stanley said, still laughing. "We love you to micro bits" he added amid his guffaw, no doubt a step closer to death by laughter.
Carl pouted and looked like he wanted to cry.
"Ok, ok, enough," Stanley the solo actor of the hour said.
"Don't make Carl angry... wait he pop the viagra pill and turn into Captain Kukujiao and beat you with his iron rod then you know," Stanley said in between giggles, suddenly talking like a primary school bully.
But in all seriousness - because ED is nothing to laugh about, and viagra is not exactly cheap according to Carl - we calmed down to address this issue... two hours later.
As we sat in Stanley's car - where many serious life conversations were heard - Carl confessed to us that he chose viagra as an option because he couldn't give up taking steroids for his weight lifting.
As we sat in the car thinking about Carl's member, Stanley wondered out loud if we would one day see our own organ failure.
"Eh, Carl... it really works?" Stanley asked.
"Show us leh, show us leh," Stanley teased, urging Carl to immediately pop his supplement.
For the first time that night, our dense friend snapped back.
"Stanley darling, even if I were to pop 10 viagra pills, if it's you I'm facing, then the penis will never get hard," Carl said, imitating Stanley's tone of voice.
Not to be outdone, Stanley returned the favour.
"My, my. Viagra really promotes blood flow to the brain."
---------------------------
Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people
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