As a student, I have always aced my tests and exams.
But this is one that I can't study for no matter how much I wish I could excel in it.
Full body, medical exam.
In keeping with my plans to prepare for retirement and to pave the way for good-quality-of-life in my golden years, I had dragged my partner J with me to undergo medical tests together.
I had found a medical centre -- Pulse, located near Singapore's gay bars -- which, apart from providing sexual health consultation, also does medical screenings.
Pulse has branches in other cities including Bangkok and Hong Kong and they cater to, among others, the LGBT community.
Why not kill two birds with one stone, I thought, hoping that I can support such initiatives while gaining from it.
And so that Saturday morning, my partner and I headed for the clinic.
We immediately felt at ease, knowing that this is an extremely welcoming environment.
We were allowed to both enter the consultation room together where our ECGs, blood tests and prostate exams were taken one after another by the doctor.
That immediately got Stanley my sex bunny friend's attention.
"That's extremely kinky," he said, looking up from his phone. "Watching your partner being probed by a doctor. I watched a movie clip with that exact storyline on PornHub."
Carl the dense one looked worried. "I never thought J had such fantasies. You're okay with that?" he asked with great concern, going completely off track.
"How was your prostate test experience," he asked, reaching for some nuts (actual nuts) across the table.
Carl shrank and cringed.
Stanley shot him an accusatory look and said "really? You're spooked by a prostate test? You? Really?"
With timing that can only be planned only by the Divine with a great sense of humour, a scrawny aunty in her 50s who looked like she's one of the Mormon sister wives with her bangs and bob cut, set our meat dish and gave Stanley a disapproving look.
Not one to back down, Stanley looked at her and said "Ooo, I love my meat. Do you, aunty?"
Carl shrank and cringed even further.
J dispelled the tension by portioning the meat, placing the fatty char siew, dripping in viscous sweet sauce, on everyone's plates.
J and I decided to meet the boys at Yan Palace (Chinatown), after our medical checkup near Tanjong Pagar.
"So, how was your test?" Stanley asked, persistent for an answer.
J shrugged and said "the doctor will email us the results."
"Was the doctor cute?" Stanley asked just as Mormon sister wife aunty placed a plate of fried noodles on our table.
Carl shrank no further. He leaned forward, eager to know if the doctor who had "fingered me and then J" (Stanley's words) was cute or not.
J laughed and did something more productive: Serve everyone a portion of the newly-arrived noodles.
As our 8 dishes arrived and dinner as well as proper eating got under way, Stanley said in all seriousness.
"I actually freak out at medical exams, you know. I mean, sometimes, ignorance is bliss."
Carl the dense one nodded vehemently at that comment.
It's true.
I mean, if cancer cells were forming in my body discreetly, do I want to know?
Carl was the first to answer.
"I would... but only if there's a huge chance of survival at the point of knowing. If I find out at Stage 4 where nothing can be done, then I'd rather just live ignorantly and enjoy my remaining years," said Carl who's key principle in life is exactly that.
I looked to Stanley for his answer.
Setting his chopsticks down, he pondered.
"I fear death, actually. But I fear the uncertainty even more," he said thoughtfully.
"Death is certain. So we don't think too much about that. What's uncertain," he said, looking all three of us in the eye, "is the permutation of possibilities that can kill you."
"A car accident. Choking on this chicken feet. Being crushed by a falling printer or fridge."
"Stan, now you're just reciting the plot of Final Destination," I said.
But Stanley does indeed have a point.
The aim of a medical check up is to hopefully pick out something in time for us to stop it from manifesting to the point that it kills us.
But what if, as Carl said, we find out we have only three months to live?
As we grow older, the certainty of death becomes even clearer.
In my younger days, I would never think twice about hopping on to a rollercoaster ride.
Now, I'd tell myself I have safer things to do in life.
Leave it to Stanley to quell the cloud of morbidity that's hovering Table 14 of Yan Palace.
He waited for Mormon sister wife to approach our table with a teapot before saying:
"So, this doctor at this gay clinic who puts his fingers into the assholes of men to feel it all around... he's a good doctor right?"
Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people
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