"Are you ready for change!" was the first greeting I got as Stanley opened the door to his lovely Queens Close apartment.
Carl the dense one had no idea what was happening and stood there dumbfounded. Then again, this was his usual self.
"Should I leave now?" I ask Stanley cautiously. Our friend didn't look 100 per cent sober.
"Do you want to give them a blank cheque? Do they deserve a free pass?" Stanley barked and continued in a monologue everyone understood. Everyone except Carl who has no idea what all those terms meant.
"Erm, I would like a free pass," he said, crossing his legs, his bladder as weak as his voice. "Please, Stan, let me in."
Stanley the sex bunny couldn't help it, and instinctively replied that's what he said and opened his door -- painted a bold green (his favourite colour) -- to welcome Carl who has urgent needs, my partner J and me to his home.
Indoors, Stanley had his own urgent needs to tend to. He lifted a bottle of Pinot Grigio from the ice bucket and hurriedly refilled a glass. Then he looked at me and said, "help yourself to the wine Adam!"
"How much have you been drinking," my partner J asked, and glanced at the clock which said 3:12pm.
That Saturday, the few of us were invited to Stanley's home for a GE Watch Party.
It is an event that takes place once every five years when friends would host food and drinks in front of the TV to watch the results of Singapore's General Election.
"It's my day off today, and I did my part as a patriotic citizen by casting my vote, so don't mind me if I celebrated my national duty early," Stanley said.
As J laid the table for our early dinner, the doorbell rang.
It was Lina, one of Stanley's yoga friends.
"Adam!" she shrieked in a shrill voice that wouldn't have passed the auditions of any Peking Opera singing.
We would know -- we met Lina late last year when Stanley hosted a year-end party and we had a taste of it.
We love Lina and right now, I'm loving her new look.
"Do you like it?" she asked flipping her hair left and right, letting her curly locks bounce in full glory.
Lina, a first generation Singaporean who's ancestral home is the motherland of all Chinese, went around exchanging air kisses with us gays.
The theme for that day's watch party was "go local".
So on Stanley's wooden table laid a messy plate of rojak, a big oval dish that's filled with hokkien mee, a big bundle of satay, black and sweetened char tou kuay, and six limp popiah.
"We're missing a few more dishes," Stanley said doing a mental count.
Minutes later, our missing dishes arrived.
It was Michael whom we've also grown to love. Michael, who, despite being gay, is the least gay person on earth. His fart had helped forge friendship with Stanley and Lina during a yoga class and the three of them had since been in a tight friendship.
"Sorry I'm late!" he said, huffing and puffing, large beads of sweat forming like a pearl tiara across his forehead.
"Did you take the stairs?" Lina asked.
"No, why would I?" Michael replied, puzzled.
Lina -- and Carl, of course -- remain puzzled, but an early dinner was calling out to us so we all tucked into our meal fervently.
"I really hope Workers' Party gains more seats this time round," Michael said. "I'm rooting for the underdogs."
"WP is hardly an underdog," Stanley pointed out. "But I love a good opposition," he said. "It's so sexy when people oppose and resist."
J looked at Stanley. "Should we be worried?"
Stanley said "if I ever get arrested for inappropriate behaviour, you will be my defence lawyer right, J?"
"Let's just hope your activities are contained in the bedroom and never spill out to the courtroom," I said, saving my poor partner from Stanley.
"This is so exciting," Lina said.
"Please be specific," I added, worried that she's empowering Stanley unnecessarily.
"I love Singapore," Lina said. "You guys have no idea how lucky you are with your democratic system."
We had no comeback because what Lina said was true. She of all people would know the value of democracy.
Except Carl the dense one who still didn't know who the exact candidates were in his constituency.
Heck, he didn't even know which constituency he was in (it's Queenstown SMC, rather than Tanjong Pagar GRC for the record. Carl was in rude shock when he stepped into the voting booth expecting to see a group of candidates as opposed to single candidates).
If Carl were allowed to procreate, our future generation would be doomed.
At the strike of 8pm local time, everyone gathered excitedly around Stanley's couch.
Lina took a corner seat of the couch and curled up like she was ready for a colonoscope. Stanley sat upright, as if he were watching a tense football match where he put half his money on one of the teams.
Michael chose to sit on Stanley's carpeted floor and proceeded to surround himself with fluffy Ikea pillows. Then he began digging his ear and smiled with satisfaction.
Carl the dense one looked at Michael, shocked.
Then he also proceeded to dig his ear and gleamed at Michael, happy to have found a true friend.
"It's starting!" Stanley yelled in case we weren't paying attention to the telly.
"Let's go!!!!!"
"Yesssss!" Lina shrieked in a voice that belongs to a Peking Opera theatre -- a haunted one to be exact.
I looked at J and smiled.
Oh boy, this is going to be a long night.
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