It took my wife close to a full year to get me to turn up for my long-delayed health check-up.
In that time, she tried encouraging me with soft prods, scathing threats and even abject fear-mongering – every trick in the book.
When it all amounted to nothing, she booked the appointment, drove me there and dropped me off like a petulant child.
Perhaps I should be slightly ashamed to admit that this was the second time in five years that my wife had had to cajole, nag, browbeat and, ultimately, schedule me into submission.
This is as conceptually infuriating as it sounds, considering I’m a grown man who officially has half a century of life wisdom and experience under his belt.
The truth is, I don’t need to be told how important these checks are at my age. I am well aware, but annoyingly enough, I still resist. Purposely delay the inevitable. Make my wife re-strategise her approach at every turn.
And as fate would have it, at the screening my wife wrestled me into doing, the doctor did detect an irregular rhythm in one of my arteries.
There were tears – mostly my wife’s. After all, one of her deepest fears – that I would leave this world first – was suddenly very real.
