Yes, all you wasted Boomers, it’s time once again for your annual Medicare Wellness Exam, paid for by the government, and who doesn’t like a doctor’s visit on Uncle Sam? Along with countless other fossilized subscribers to Medicare.gov, you’ve been getting endless emails from your friendly government to remind you of this all-important yearly ritual, to the point where it looks like the Department of Justice will come looking for you if you skip it. You might even be deported to the southern hemisphere if you fail to show up, and who knows what kind of healthcare they have down there, assuming they have any at all?

If you’re like me, the physical part of the exam is a cinch. Even though I cope with COPD, asthma, diabetes, and high everything (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high anxiety), I’ve found I can fake fitness just by showing up on time, breathing without turning blue, and stepping up on the weight scale without falling to my death. I strongly advise you to refrain from passing out or bleeding at such an important appointment: as much as you might want to do those things, this is not the time or the place. Your goal is to pass your physical, not flunk it like a medieval plague victim. Take all the vaccinations on offer and, if requested to do so, pee like a horse into the little cup. Nothing is easier.

Now comes the tricky part: faking a healthy mental status. To start, don’t act as suicidal or unhinged as you feel in today’s frantic world, and if you’re a man and have a cute nurse, don’t ask her to give you one of those thrilling prostate exams the way she used to. Those digital insertions left the building when Covid walked in, so don’t offer up your sphincter. Your task now is to fake being mentally alert enough that your cute nurse doesn’t feel obligated to revoke your driver’s license or worse.

That brings us to the dementia test. Fortunately for you, I’ve taken this test for years and know how to pass it. I could write an article on how you too can breeze through it, and in fact that’s what I’m doing. Call it cheating if you will, but if you want to keep driving your car and avoid being placed in an assisted living facility, then listen up.

The test I take for dementia consists of three tasks, the same three each year, and though I’ve done no research on the matter, I’m willing to bet that you’ll take the same test too, so here goes. The first task is this: the doctor or nurse will give you three words to remember, then chat calmly with you for ten seconds about the existential threat of climate change, and finally ask you to repeat the three words you were given. Since it’s the same script for everyone, I’ll give you the words to memorize: ball, river, tree. It’s always ball, river, tree, every time. Or is it apple, river, tree? Anyway ball, river, tree is close enough. Just recite that and you’ll be on your way to mental acuity no matter how dimwitted and forgetful you are.

The second task is no more difficult, and again never varies. You are handed a piece of paper and a pen and asked to draw a clock with the hands showing eleven-fifteen. It’s never any other time. Practice drawing eleven-fifteen at home before your appointment so that your clock doesn’t look like the surrealist Salvador Dali painted it, or like a pepperoni pizza, perhaps with a grandchild steadying your hand, and you’ll ace this part too. Just make sure your grandchild knows what an old-fashioned clock looks like.

Congratulations, you’re almost home! The third task is the toughest, but don’t worry, you’ll get through it. Your medical practitioner will ask you to count backward by sevens starting at 100. Now don’t panic, there’s a simple trick to this: before you wade into the treacherous stream of 100, 93, 86…and so on, simply mention that you write about scorekeeping in pickleball for the AARP. Impressed by your math skills, the nurse or doctor will pass you, guaranteed.

After my last wellness exam, the nurse told me, “You probably won’t get lost driving home.” I never heard more encouraging words.

————

Michael Fowler writes humor and horror in Ohio.