Best Supporting Actor

My sex bunny friend Stanley's mum was recently hospitalised.

Mrs Monica Ong was getting out of the family car when she lost her footing because she wanted to avoid stepping on a snail.

That poor kind-hearted soul ended up not only twisting her ankle but also falling sideways landing on her left hip.

"Ouch!" Carl the dense one typed in the group chat, his response for once, matching the topic.

"The doctors say my mum didn't hurt her hip," Stanley wrote.

Carl then began typing.

"She hurt her spine instead and doctors are now saying she may not be able to walk for a while!"

"Yay! Good for her!" Carl's message appeared with unfortunate timing.

During Mrs Ong's first few days in hospital, Stanley had been busy shuttling between work and home and Mount Elizabeth Hospital Novena.

Stanley's dad, with his ageing eyes, no longer drives so Stanley's been the main chauffeur, ferrying his dad to the hospital in the morning, and then back home in the evening.

What's more, Stanley's sister isn't in town so the burden is all Stanley's to bear.

Every day, Stanley has to talk to the doctor to find out one surprise after another.

All she needs is occupational therapy and physiotherapy. 
Oh, no... we think a fragment of her spine is edged on her nerves.
We think she may not be able to walk for a while. She's getting weaker by the day.
We think she may need surgery. 

"Caregiving is very tiring. I am so exhausted," Stanley wrote.

"Why is this happening to my mum when all she wants to do is to avoid stepping on a snail. Life is very unfair. My advice to all mothers would be to just step on the bloody snail."

Carl wisely chose not to type anything rashly until he gets a final, final assessment of the situation, just in case.

Juggling work, taking care of a loved one, and handling day-to-day matters at home is no fun.

Add to that, the scary thought of your mum not being able to walk for a while.

What does that even mean?

Will she recover? Will she forever be bedridden? Will she have to be wheeled around?

No doctors dare to commit.

My university classmate Sasa - who had not met Stanley in person but has heard many saucy stories through me - wrote this after learning about Mrs Ong's plight.

"Sasa to Stanley: Not easy caring for a sick parent. Been through that and it was tough. Hope your mum recovers well".

When I copied and pasted that message to Stanley - who knows Sasa as my wealthy classmate with her designer apartment - he replied me with an icon of a beating heart.

My poor Stanley.

He hadn't even had time to reply me in full sentences of late, what more make time to meet us.

Part of me feels really bad that I am not by his side given that I'm sometimes bound by COVID laws in Singapore so I make myself absent so that Stanley doesn't need to worry about overcrowding at the hospital. 

And I'm guilty that the only comfort I can give him is limited.

Which got me thinking about how I can be a more supportive friend.

Thankfully, there's J my loveable partner. 

In J's words, the role of a supportive friend is not to keep asking and asking and asking about a situation.

Just because we text someone every day asking "how are things" doesn't make it easier for the person nor automatically makes us supportive.

In fact, it makes things worse, J says.

"Imagine after a long day and you get such messages and you have to reply them? Now imagine if Stanley has 10 of such concerned friends... it's not going to help," J said over a video call.

How wise.

Very often, we express our concern too literally, sometimes forgetting that our intense questioning can be overbearing to those we care about.

Yes, the textbook act of posing questions to those we care about can mean that we are concerned.

But at the end of the day, the only person benefiting from feeling good about this, could well be only ourselves, not the ones we care about.

I shared my thoughts with Stanley over one videocall.

He was sitting in his car, spacing out.

"Wow, J is so wise," Stanley said.

"One good way of being supportive to me is really not to keep asking me about my mum.

"Distract me... talk to me about other things.

"Better yet, I appoint you to be my official pimp. Help me arrange one-night-stands. I'm too busy for that now," Stanley says, forcing himself to laugh.

"Tell them the caregiver is sick of his role and the only thing he wants to give now involves his mouth and his hand," Stanley says, inflating and deflating one side of his cheek in slow-mo, along with a coordinated hand movement.

"And tell them the caregiver is tired of giving, and is ready to receive," he added, making an effort to take his phone all the way to his buttocks to make his point.

---------------------------

Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people

Greys Anatomy

It's official. 

I have entered a grey area in my life.

And it's in black and white. 

Of late, I'd been studying my grey strands to no end, documenting this unavoidable stage of my life.

The sides of my hair first started greying in my mid-thirties, just as the family genes meant it to be.

My mum says her crowning glory went downhill at that age too, and going by historical data, I will have a head full of white hair by age 55. 

While I am aware of my family genes, I honestly hadn't realised how quickly my hair had changed colour over the years.

It was as if Age crept up to my bedside in the middle of one night and playfully poked a hole in my hair, letting its black lusture leak out slowly.

Stanley my sex bunny friend, of course, had something to say about this analogy. 

"If anyone wants to creep up to your bedside in the middle of the night and playfully poke at you that results in something to leak out, I don't see why you should be so upset about it," he typed in our WhatsApp group chat. 

Carl the dense one, who is also in that group chat, was trying to get to the root of the conversation.

Carl is that one friend we all have: The one who would innocently offer bak kut teh to Razak at the school canteen, the one who would march to the wrong rhythm in a moving platoon, the one who would heartily congratulate a fat colleague for being pregnant. 

"So, who came to your room that night, Adam?" was where Carl managed to conclude. 

If I so much as to skip the hair-dyeing at the salon, my hair would look like it's printed from a copier that is urgently running out of black ink. 

And because I'm really bad at all things D-I-Y, I had never bothered to dye my hair on my own (save for the one time that I bought a bright blonde dye and asked my sister to help me with it when we were in our late teens).

Recently, I stopped dyeing at the salon because of COVID.

That was when my true colours were revealed. 

"Adam, you look like you're 50," Carl said clearly and plainly, when he saw photos of my greying hair.

"You can start telling people you are 65, so that they can praise you for looking young," added Stanley who is always an expert when it comes to doing things backwards. 

Carl posted a gif of a pouting baby to convey empathy. 

Incapable of reading the mood in the group chat, Carl said "you know, the other day, I was buying food from the hawker stall when the Uncle called me Xiao Di".

Not missing a beat, Stanley who has always been jealous of Carl's youthful genes, replied: "And how old was the Uncle? 400?"

I've obviously aged through the years thanks to those cruel 10-year-challenge photos I'm forced to do on social media but I've come to accept this natural progress. 

Plus, I'm already happily attached to my lovely partner J who tells me he didn't fall in love with me because of my gorgeous looks. 

"Wow, that's so sweet," Carl said genuinely, obviously failing to read the situation accurately again.

"Ouch, sister," Stanley said, managing to read between the lines (Stanley is an expert at all things in between).

In the beginning, I was really uncomfortable with my current look.

I don't want to look my age.

But slowly, I began to have two minds about looking like a 400-year-old Uncle.

Some gay friends who had seen my recent photos on social media privately tell me I look good as a silver fox. 

"The look suits you' I relayed that message to the group. To which, Stanley promptly responded clearly and plainly: "Yes, because you ARE old".

I've also started weighing the pros and cons of just proudly wearing my new daddy look.

While I am thankful I still have a head full of hair and that my body is in the correct shape, I have honestly aged over the years. 

So if I were to continue lying and dyeing, I may come across as trying too hard. 

Besides, if I were to fully embrace my greying look, I can always tell the world that I am ageing with grace, I told the group.

I was almost sure Carl would be wondering who Grace was when he said: "Adam, you're ageing with Greys!"

Stanley immediately posted a gif of a black woman clapping merrily.

Not wanting to be outdone, Stanley said "And that can be a very sexy thing. They don't call it 50 shades of Grey for nothing".

 

 

 

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Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people

The Halfway Mark

This isn't exactly life-changing info, but guys, it's the halfway mark of 2021.

Carl the dense one looked up from his plate, completely horrified at this revelation. 

True to form, Carl remarked loudly: "Wow, guys. I didn't realise!"

Stanley the sex bunny -- who's never stingy with retorts and sarcasm -- rolled his eyes and said: "Wow, I didn't realise too," adding, "thank you Sherlock."

"Why are you so nasty, Stan. What made you like this?" 

Guilty, Stanley shrugged and blamed it on COVID.

"It's the virus, I swear," he said pointing upwards accusingly at unseen germs. "COVID and lockdown are making me very sarcastic with all this pent up energy."

Carl pouted emphatically and forked another piece of juicy meat that looks too big for his mouth. 

I eyed Stanley cautiously to see if he would make any unsavoury joke about Carl's hand-to-mouth action and thankfully, the fella didn't bite.

Instead, Stanley carried on with the topic of the day.

Six months into what initially seemed could be a hopeful year, a year of vaccines and possible reopening, and here we are, still fighting the virus, still tied down by the effects.

I remember chatting with my boys -- virtually -- at the start of 2021, each of us hoping that the world would get its act together and finally get rid of this virus. 

And though we weren't firm believers -- or followers -- of New Year Resolutions, we made them anyway. 

I for one, have no complaints given that for me, it's a case of so far so good: Putting one foot in front of another, making slow but sure progress to the rest of my year, whether in terms of work or personal life. 

As for Stanley, he feels relatively accomplished. 

He had made it a point to eat more healthily and has, for the last six months, embarked on a culinary transformation journey, starting to buy nutritious food and meal-prep for the week.

"And I feel lighter and fitter," he said in his zoom window, crunching into his KFC drumstick. 

Carl and I exchanged looks. 

Stanley took two more bites of the crispy carcass, and breathed deeply. 

"Stop judging me, Adam!" Stanley snapped without any provocation. "Why are you so nasty. What made you like this?" he barked. 

Carl nervously pointed in the air at unseen germs.

Our dense friend's New Year Resolution progress is also stalled. 

For his new year goal, Carl had painstakingly planned for bigger biceps.

But with his routine again disrupted by COVID lockdowns, his biceps have deflated as did his mood. 

"I miss working out in a gym," Carl said.

"I seriously don't think I am disciplined enough to follow through these home workout videos."

So Carl shelved his beefing up plans and while waiting for the doors of gyms to reopen, has now found a new hobby: Watching Korean dramas on Netflix. 

"It's actually quite timely you mentioned this halfway mark, Adam," Stanley admitted. 

It's really important that we take stock of what we've achieved so far and what needs to be done moving forward," he said in between more mouthfuls of chicken.

"Because, okay, if you must ask, I've caved in to unhealthy eating once again."

Carl nodded with understanding. And then he let out a yelp of laughter. 

"Carl, stop watching Korean dramas!" Stanley barked, showing us how halfway-chewed KFC chicken looked like.

Guilty, Carl smiled and reasoned "this is the cliff hanger episode."

"All Korean dramas are the same," Stanley snapped. "They all involve pretty but angsty villains who won't hesitate to slap or tear your K-pop hair apart. And they always have two feuding families -- one extremely wealthy, the other, dirt-poor but always happy for whatever reason. And somewhere in the plot, there's always a mixup of babies into another family, or someone trying to keep up with their secret identities."

Carl opened his mouth wide, impressed. 

"Like I said, we need to reassess our goals for 2021 to see if we should review them," Stanley said, more for himself than me. Carl had gone back to staring and smiling at his iPad, fully mesmerised by the world of Netflix. 

For Stanley the overachiever, any goal he sets, he needs to meet. 

He's the type where if he could, he would study very hard the night before his medical exam just so he can ace it. 

But it's more important in the current context, Stanley reasons. 

When you feel like you're controlled by all these external conditions like COVID and lockdowns, you feel like you have to achieve your own plans with your own effort.

"Plus, we can't travel!" Stanley moaned.

"Yes! Korea! I want to go Korea!" Carl cheered. 

"But first, I need to work on the second half of the year and get it right," Carl said, squeezing his deflated biceps.

"So that when I go to Korea, I'll be at my best. The bigger, the better," said the gym rabbit.

"I hear ya, gurl. Me too. Only the best in Korea. The bigger the better," said the sex bunny. 

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Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people

Life Under Lockdown Lite

6am mornings, freshly brewed coffee, cool balcony breeze.

Homemade meals, wine, double espresso by the balcony.

Welcome to a day in the life of Adam Lee.

The last two weeks of semi-lockdown in Singapore had been such a joy for an introvert like me.

To slash the rate of COVID transmission here, our government decided to ban outdoor dining and restrict the number of people going out to two.

I immediately relished the idea of staying home, secretly happy that I didn't have to go out to meet friends and entertain their complaints that they hadn't seen me since my return to Singapore!

I was also quite happy that I could use this excuse to tell the sometimes overbearing Mrs Lee that it's for your own good that I'm not coming back for weekend dinners.

This, however, didn't stop my mum from sharing a minimum of 6 videos a day, all related to COVID-19.

The only downfall is that I don't get to meet J as much as I'd like to, but frankly, for a couple who's been together for nearly 2 decades, two weeks of not meeting isn't the end of the world. 

And so I began to live in my own happy world for the next two weeks. 

Every morning, I'd continue to wake up at 6am (yes, Adam is one of those disgusting morning persons).

By 6.30am, I'd be at my laptop, labouring over any work-related task.

My partner J used to say that if you spend the first 30 minutes of your day on a task, the rest of the day will naturally be productive.

My sex bunny friend Stanley buys this theory.

Thirty minutes of thrusting, sweating, panting and climaxing will surely be productive to the nation's birth rates, provided both the producers are of the correct sex. 

By 9am, before everyone else in my firm wakes up to make me sigh, I log off and go for a very sweaty run, along the rail corridor. 

And on days when I'm feeling extra lazy, instead of continuing to work, I sit and write blog pieces before lunch (12pm sharp -- I have recently discovered that intermittent fasting works for me!).

Cooking has always been a therapeutic activity for me so I let my creativity do the talking.

On some days, I recreate salad dressings stolen from Nigella Lawson. Other days, I take a can of "five spice pork", dump into the wok onion, garlic and a handful of fusilli to whip up my version of Aglio Olio. 

It's empowering when you're the one deciding what you want to eat, and put in actual effort in doing so. 

And between lunch and dinner (which must end at 8pm sharp!), I do more work, often in a corner of my place where I mentally psych myself up to recognise that this would be my productive zone. 

Stanley my sex bunny friend takes issue with the term productive zone, arguing that it sounds very provocative. 

Our dense friend Carl's productive zone is his large balcony, where he spends one-third of his days producing muscles via home workout videos. 

By 9pm, when I'm done talking to my loved ones on WhatsApp, I crawl into bed with a very good book (I'm currently reading School of Good and Evil) and sleep by 11pm so that I get the full benefits of a 7-hour sleep.

"I can't wait for this to end," Carl said with a pout over video call the other evening, absolutely horrified that I'm actually enjoying semi-lockdown.

"My poor muscles are deflating without the gym!"

"Oh hunny, trust me," Stanley chimed in.

"This semi-lockdown is getting to me too, and quite frankly, it's not just my muscles that remain deflated," the sex bunny said seriously. 

---------------------------

Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people

COVID Scare

Stanley the sex bunny video-called Carl and me earlier this week.

It was 11am and Carl was sweating and panting when he answered the call. 

Do we want to know what you had been doing prior to this call, I say suspiciously into my phone.

Carl the dense one responded with a grin, flashed almost all of his 32 teeth at the camera, and let his actions do the talking. 

"This," the gym rabbit explained in between doing a push up with dumbells in his hands before recovering into a squat and a jump, "is called a maneater exercise."

On cue, the two of us looked to Stanley who surely must have something to say to this exercise. 

"Guys, I think I could be a super spreader," he said. "And the kind of fluids and droplets involved are the viral sort."

Carl immediately stopped eating men and sat on his yoga mat bringing his phone closer to him.

Turns out, Stanley had been identified as one of those who may have come in contact with a COVID-19 case. 

Our sex bunny friend had recently gone grocery shopping at JEM.

Days later, the authorities urged those who had been there, to get tested ASAP.

"I feel like my throat is scratchy... like it's heating up or something," Stanley said, and proceeded to dramatically swallow his saliva and moan as if his days were numbered.

Knowing Stanley and his track record, anything could have given him that burning throat and that virus may well be something other than COVID-19. 

"Should I go see a doctor now?" Stanley asked. 

"Is the STD clinic still open for business now?" Carl blurted.

Stanley threw dagger eyes in Carl's direction. 

"I'm supposed to get swapped," Stanley said, "for COVID," he added with a raised voice, letting his tone mark the exclamation point. 

Carl bit his lip guiltily and quietly went back to doing a few more maneating sets. 

"I'm worried," Stanley said.

"Don't be," Carl reassured in between pants and grunts. 

"It's purely because you did your safe entry that you were alerted to the exposure. You should be at ease".

Stanley took a deep breath and said: "Let me break this down for you boys simply and plainly. You hit the right spot, Carl, when you threw up words like safe, entry and exposure, and in my case, those words are linked to an actual male human body.

Carl took all of nine seconds to digest Stanley's words and gasped with his mouth so wide that this time, all 32 of his teeth were visible for the virtual world to see.

Stanley had recently met two strangers (on separate occasions) for, in his classy words, "intimate engagements".

Carl nodded with approval, mentally shelving those terms for his own use in future.

Thing is, Stanley was worried that he may have to spill the beans to the authorities to help them with contact tracing.

If you can spill your seeds in front of absolute strangers, what's spilling a little beans? I ask, unable to help myself. 

This time, the dagger stares were diverted in my direction. 

Hours later, Stanley posted a photo in our group chat.

It was a sealed plastic bag with the word "biohazard" set against a yellow triangle. 

Between Carl's indoor workout and me replying endless emails and now, Stanley had booked himself a slot to get swapped, contacted two of his one night stands to break the news, and driven himself to the clinic for testing.

Stanley had handled those tasks with precise efficiency. 

After all the workflow of contacting sex partners and going to a clinic for testing is something Stanley the sex bunny had been reenacting various times in his life.  

"Boys, in a while, someone is going to insert and wiggle a rod in a part of my body that no men had ever ventured," the queen of theatre typed. 

"And I'm actually excited," he wrote, despite himself. 

A day later, Stanley updated the group chat.

"I'm negative for COVID!" Stanley wrote, the sentence pulsating with relief against the WhatsApp interface. 

"And good news is, when they swapped me, I gagged! I thought I had lost my gag reflex years ago!"

Retirement Plans

Two years ago when my boys and I hit 40, we kept reminding one another that we've truly reached mid life, and we'd only have the next 40 years left, so they'd better be fucking good.

Stanley the sex bunny nodded with approval at the word fucking and wondered if he'd still have the energy and drive for such strenuous activity when he's all crinkled up like a shriveled prune. 

Pass the salt please, Stanley says.

Carl the dense one -- who is the fairest and youngest-looking of us all -- curled up like a ball and hid his face between his knees.

"I don't want to be old and crinkly ever," Carl says. I can hear a pout even though his face is buried in his knees.

"Carl, please," I say urgently. "We're very visible in the open."

The three of us were having Sunday champagne brunch at Fullerton Bay just because.

And when you have three very happy gay men with access to free flow alcohol at 11.30am, there is no such thing as subtlety. 

Last weekend, we decided to wear nice clothes and be out and about, and Stanley had insisted the day involved alcohol. 

Stanley turned up in a newly tailored shirt with prints so loud and colourful you would have thought he's a rich Datuk.

Carl, as usual, is in an apparel that's 2 sizes too small for his bulky frame, and the pick of the day is a white polo tee.

Earlier that morning, while we were still sober and respectable, the three of were led to a cosy corner of the hotel and promptly served welcome drinks.

"This tastes like cough mixture," Stanley said, and raised his hand to place a round of bubbly immediately. 

"It's so nice we can afford such meals without having to worry if we'd have enough to eat for the next week," Stanley said, sitting back on his oversized chair.

Carl stopped counting with his fingers and whispered: "This meal can buy me a week's groceries at Sheng Siong!"

As our table was filled with large, silver plates of cold lobster, prawn, mussels and more rounds of bubbly, Stanley set the topic of discussion. 

"Have you guys thought about how you want to retire?" he asks in all seriousness. 

Gone are the young and dangerous days when Stanley would fill us in over a meal, with sordid details of his sex life.

In our twenties and thirties, when we were young and invincible, every dinner or drinks topic would always revolve around sex. 

Stanley's sexcapades. 

If Stanley were to write a book, it would not have passed the censors and whatever experiences and advice he wishes to pass on to the next generation of gays would have to be recorded on nifty.org. 

That, or oral history, as Stanley would say. 

Carl on the other hand, would definitely make it to the shelves of Popular bookshop as his book would be a pictorial comic on body building, the fonts as large as his python sized biceps.

But I digress.

The question of retirement is quite out of character for Stanley but it was no surprise to me because over the years, I've seen my gay best friend grow. 

Similarly, I have seen Carl the gym rabbit grow -- from a skinny young lad to this gentle hulk whose currently struggling to dig out lobster meat from a stick-thin claw. 

He finally gave up and started sucking noisily on the claw. 

My idea of retirement -- as is the idea of the next gay man -- is to have lots and lots of money. 

After all, most gay men in Singapore know we'll never have offspring to push us around in our wheelchairs or change our diapers when we feel warm and moist after a particularly heavy breakfast. 

And so, we'll always have to be prepared. 

Even though I'd been partnered with the most amazing man for the last 20 years and counting, my retirement plans had never solely revolved around J. 

Yes, we would retire together (we are after all, just one year apart), but a wise gay man will always plan his life as if he were single.

For me, the baseline would be to keep saving up and keep pace with J who's already a millionaire. 

When I first knew J, we were in our very early twenties and the idea of retirement was very fuzzy. 

We had both naively thought that we would one day retire in Chiang Mai, after visiting the city in 2005. 

We would probably live like kings (and queens) with the strength of our Sing Dollar and we can eat all the Thai food till our very last days.

Years later, my idea of retirement was tweaked.

When I was in university in Australia, I chanced upon a retirement settlement during one of my evening runs. 

The sun was setting and along the Brisbane River banks was a row of townhouses. 

I watched as elderly couples -- each holding a glass of wine -- slowly made their way down to their front porch, forming a sunset watch party.

That's the kind of retirement I want, I remember thinking to myself as I panted and sweated and continued running away from my future. 

As J and I grew older, we would occasionally visit the topic of retirement.

We finally decided that we would both retire, grow old and die in Singapore. 

What's important to us, is that we have a sense of familiarity here and there's definitely a sense of belonging to this lovely island. 

Our friends, family and loved ones are all here -- and we no longer think it's thrilling to pack our luggage and move across continents and grow roots in a new environment where we can't be sure if we'd be welcomed or not.

J's idea of retirement is soon -- he wants to stop working by 55 latest and make time to do charity work, read all the books he can, and maybe finally write a fantasy fiction novel. 

Mine is to wake up in the morning, have my coffee by the balcony, read the papers and then dress up like a true blue ah pek in tattered singlet, shorts and slippers and eat my dry wanton mee in a nearby coffee shop.

Once in a while, J and I will want to host parties for our friends where I will reproduce the Peranakan dishes J's mum taught me and our friends will stagger home slowly with their bellies full.

That's our end goal.

And to do that, we'll have to work backwards: We'll need enough money to do all that we want comfortably. 

Retirement planning can either be an exciting or depressing affair.

I'm lucky because J had always been forward thinking and I had always seen him as a role model. 

And so, I had worked in retirement plans quite early in my life without realising it. 

J said I should load up on the necessary insurance plans once I started my first job -- cover myself for the basics: Hospital, accident, critical illness plans. 

And then, the golden rule of saving and saving and saving.

I have also tried to replicate his Monopoly tycoon ways of owning more than one property to churn out rental income that could fund our retirement plans.

And because I had a head start and have an end goal in mind, my retirement planning -- though still work-in-progress -- is rather exciting. 

A seat away, Carl stopped licking his fingers and looked to the ceiling, momentarily lost in his own thought.

"Actually, I don't have a retirement plan and I think that's perfectly healthy," our dense friend said a tad too happily, a combination of both his good-natured naivety and his seventh glass of bubbly. 

"I guess I have enough money in my CPF, he said. "And when my parents die, I'll inherit half their condo!"

Carl raised his champagne glass at this moment and the three of us toasted awkwardly.

As Stanley set his flute down, he thought openly about his own retirement plan. 

Recently, the sex bunny parted ways with a large chunk of his money to buy a 4-room flat which he intended to turn into a beautiful home. 

"When you make lifechanging purchases like that, it hits you. Suddenly, your bank account is almost empty after all the reno and furnishing expenses, and you wonder if you'll have enough money for retirement," says Stanley who probably has his name sealed in his wealthy parents' will. 

"I plan to clear my housing loan in 5 years and by then, I'll be poor all over again," Stanley says. 

Carl gestured to us to lean forward and whispered: "I think I have enough money in my CPF!"

Stanley nodded and gently pushed Carl back into his seat like an impatient parent, and continued: "I might consider renting out the extra room if I need money, but I'll never be rich enough to own multiple properties like J!" 

But then again, Stanley reasons, I shouldn't be replicating your retirement plans. I should do what I feel is best for me. And if I focus on saving up money and plonk them into investments to grow my retirement funds, that might work for me too, he says.

Carl looked at me and Stanley and smiled.

"When my parents die, I'll inherit half their condo!" Carl said like a gleeful child, then covered his mouth and giggled guiltily like a naughty school girl.

 

 

---------------------------

Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people

Innocent Children

I love kids.

Those young, child-like, imaginative, and innocent minds are so loveable. 

But I love kids mainly as a god-parent.

My understanding of children is admittedly shallow.

Sure, being a god father to my loveable godson has taught me how to love a small being and shower him with gifts.

But it hasn't magically turned me into a natural parent equipped with the necessary skills to take care of - and more importantly - bring up a child well.

I have never had to crawl out of bed in the middle of the night to make my wailing Mattie milk (can I heat up Magnolia?)

Nor do I have to bathe him (can he use adult shampoo? What do I wash his face with - face wash? Soap?)

Nor change his diapers (help! I'm serious. HELP!).

And I have nothing but respect for my friends who're parents.

Especially two years ago, before the world was turned upside down by COVID, and when I found myself thrust into the centre of parenthood.

I were to bring Mattie out on a group play date without his parents.

I'll be fine, I tell myself.

I have the basic godparenting skills already - I know how to handle Mattie if he needs to poo-poo or pee-pee outside, I know what to do if he's tired, and this time, I definitely will remember to blow into his spoonful of steaming hot food before feeding him lest I scald the poor boy's tongue and lips again.

That day, Mattie and I were to join an NS friends outing.

It was one of those outings where we would include wives and kids, so I brought Mattie along (my partner J thought it would be so strange to tag along and refused to come along). 

Six sets of parents, two gay men (me and my sex bunny friend Stanley whom I got to know in NS), and a grand total of 11 kids ranging from sleepy infants and wailing toddlers to restless children between the ages of three and eight, filled one large corner of the lunch buffet at Pan Pacific Hotel.

If you've been to such outings, you'd know your attention is stretched.

You've gotta keep one eye on your little 'un (Papa, I want to see the statue there) and visually track where that little rascal is heading (Mattie, not too near the statute please). And just when you manage to absorb what your friends are saying and are about to contribute to the on-again off-again conversation, somewhere, a crisis would pop up and someone needs rescuing (Little Sandy spilling mashed potato all over her bib; Joshua grabbing his daddy's specs with his tiny hands; Elena and Elaine again squabbling and demanding the justice of their mum).

"Remind me, the next time we have such an outing, to have six shots before I come," Stanley leaned in and whispered in my ear.

"And by shots, they're not limited to the alcoholic or pharmaceutical type - those by cute men are definitely more than welcome," Stanley added, his child-unfriendly remarks a tad too loud, making Mrs Sharon Lee shift awkwardly and cough.

By the time the kids were full, they started to be lulled into some form of uneasy calm with restlessness threatening to bubble up.

So thank god for helpers - we had three domestic helpers in the group - who took the kids away for a while, offering the tired adults much needed reprieve.

"I don't know how you guys manage," I say finally, as if someone had just released a set of handcuffs, setting me free.

"Yah... me too!" Stanley said to the adults.

"That's why the only way to stop this logistical nightmare of managing kids is to actually put your pee-pee not into pat-pat but into the poot-poot. That way, you can have fun but not worry about producing kids," added Stanley who not only needed to be handcuffed and locked away, but his mouth also needed to be stuffed and gagged (although with Stanley, handcuffing him might be part of his fantasy and stuffing his mouth with something is actually more a reward than a punishment. Plus that veteran sex bunny will never gag).

David Lee Bock Seng (who's nickname is Boxing Lee), one of our most earnest and straight-talking buddies, agrees.

"Bro Stanley, next time you share these kind of tips earlier lah," he said. "Look at me - I put my pee-pee in her pat-pat and now I have twin trouble!"

Inches away, his wife Sharon's heavy bosoms bubbled with anger, spelling double trouble and perhaps some actual boxing for Boxing Lee later.

"But all kids are innocent and lovely," I say, hoping to save Boxing from potential domestic abuse.

"NO LOR," Boxing said, unwilling to be saved.

"You would think that all kids are innocent. Adam, you're wrong," he said, wagging a finger at me.

Apparently, Boxing's set of twins Elena and Elaine - who are about a minute apart by birth - are world's apart in character.

Elena is the doting "jie-jie" to her unreasonable "mei-mei".

I saw Sharon smile urgently at us when her kicking Boxing under the table yielded no results. Sharon proceeded to take a quick swig of water to quell her apparent inner frustration while her clueless Boxing continued venting.

You would imagine that twins who look identical wouldn't be that far apart in character even though they will be unique, Boxing reasons.

But mei-mei's behaviour is beyond me, Boxing said 

Once, Sharon tied lovely plaids for the four year olds before they went to school.

And when Sharon went to pick her twins up, the teacher related this incident to her.

Mei-mei's plaids, because her hair was shorter, came loose. So naturally, mei-mei cried, demanding the teacher to plaid her hair again. The patient but firm teacher said to mei-mei that, no, she will not plaid her hair. She will simply tie up mei-mei's hair so that it's not messy. And then, mei-mei sat on the floor, kicked her legs wildly and told the teacher "if I cannot have plaids, then jie-jie cannot have plaids too! In the end, her doting older sister voluntarily loosened her neatly-tied plaids just to placate her younger sibling.

Boxing said he was very upset that his younger daughter is so unreasonable.

That's not all.

The same nursery teacher told them another incident.

Jie-jie had cut her forearm one day. So mummy Sharon pasted a 'Frozen' plaster and sent her off to school. Somehow, mei-mei accidently hurt herself in school later that day too. And when the same teacher wanted to paste a plain plaster for her, mei-mei again literally kicked up a hissy fit, demanding that she too have the same 'Frozen' plaster. "If I don't have the 'Frozen' plaster, then jie-jie must change to a plain plaster too!"

That got me thinking.

Kids' behaviour can be learnt from observing the adults.

Boxing is one of the kindest people I know. Straight talking, sometimes clueless, but definitely a man with a good heart.

Sharon, while uptight, isn't evil either.

So, why oh why is mei-mei's character so different to the loving, kind-hearted and doting jie-jie's?

Are characters built into the DNA of kids no matter how innocent they are?

By then, Stanley was very engaged for the first time of the afternoon, enthralled by this brewing drama.

"Imagine when they grow up - mei-mei falls in love with the same man as jie-jie... you can imagine that the younger one will demand that her older sister give up the man of her love..."Stanley whispered in my ear.

"Luckily for us gays, if this were to happen in reel life, the hot set of boy twins will happily share the same man without fighting over him."

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Adam's stories are based on real life events and inspired by real people