We had another meeting with the man from the life assurance company. In fact it was a different man - the guy we'd been dealing with has moved on to another job - which was slightly bizarre as this new man was coming round to ask us a list of quite intimate questions about our health and I quite like to have met someone a couple of times before I tell them if I've tested positive for Hepatitis B or not (I'd like to tell you whether I have now, because it now sounds like I have, but I don't know you, so I can't). It struck me as we were answering these questions that we were taking it on faith that he was the man from the insurance company. What if he was just a chancer who had hacked into my email and realised that with a bit of subterfuge and a couple of lies he could find out the entire medical history of my colon. If so he will have been quite disappointed as my colon has up until now at least always been perfectly healthy. But maybe he gets off on knowing that. If he's prepared to go to such lengths then who knows what kind of things turn him on.
My wife and I were answering the questions together and this might have been the perfect time to spring a few surprises on each other. The man did say that this form has been the catalyst for at least one divorce. The question that sparked that was "Have you tested positive for any sexually transmitted disease in the last five years?" You can see that that one might have some repercussions if answered in the affirmative for anyone who'd been together for longer than that time. And what a moment to let your other half know about this. If I had tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease in the last five years (and I haven't) then I think I would have said that I hadn't and then found an excuse to walk the man to his car and tell him about it out of earshot of my wife. You know if I'd kept the secret for so long, why blurt it out now? Though if any passerby overheard me telling the man that I had had a sexually transmitted disease in the last five years, seemingly apropos of nothing, it might be even more embarrassing.
And yet I can perhaps see how you might spill the beans. You're aware that if you get caught lying on these forms then your cover might well become worthless. And in a sense it's easier to open up about this stuff to someone you don't know at all. And once you've opened up you kind of want to get everything out. He could have asked me anything at this point and I would probably have answered. If it's on an official form, you kind of don't question it. Even if you might think later, hold on that question about how I lost my virginity didn't have any effect on my health. In fact I reckon the police could use this tactic to extract confessions from criminals. Have you ever killed a man? Did you rob the Natwest bank on Balham High Road on 13th November 2008? That kind of thing. You've let your defences down and are off-guard and it's such a relief to offload this stuff.
I guess it'd be better to hear about the bad stuff now rather than later. If I died my wife would at least have the consolation of that large sum of money, but imagine how she'd feel if it was only then that she realised that I'd died from a terrible sex disease that I had not declared and that meant she wasn't going to even get the money (and she'd probably also have the terrible sex disease). That'd be a triple whammy of disappointment.
But I haven't contracted a terrible sex disease. The chance would be a fine thing. In fact there's been so little wrong with me, or my long living family, and my lifestyle is so boring that I doubt that I will even die in the next 21 years. I bloody well better. I can't let the insurance company beat me.
The Peter Serafinowicz podcast that we recorded a couple of weeks ago
has gone up at the British Comedy Guide and on iTunes. Hope you enjoy it. Some great stuff about his experience of being in Star Wars.
