The older I get, the more I find that the one thing I dislike most about my annual physical exam, besides getting poked and prodded, is the dreaded cognitive test to see if I am still cooking on all four.

My doctor said the test is required periodically by Medicare. Who am I to argue with a system that gives me practically free health care?

As I sit on the edge of the examining table, the test begins.

First, there are the softball questions: What’s the date; who is the U.S. president; what floor of the medical building are we on?

Check, check and check.

Then come the trickier ones, prefaced by: “I am going to say three words now, and I will ask you to repeat them to me when we are done.”

“Apple. Boat. Cat.”

OK, that’s not hard, but my heart immediately skips a beat or two, and I’m suddenly glad he checked my blood pressure before we jumped into the mental acrobatics. Not that I was anywhere close to 120/80 to begin with.

Now come the real brain teasers.

“Count backward from 100 by sevens,” the doctor says.

Ha! I’ve got this one. My sister told me about it. I sometimes actually use this mathematical strategy to help me fall asleep (more challenging than counting sheep).

The only trouble is, I’m usually snoring by the time I get to 79, so now I actually have to think about it. I swear this was not part of the multiplication tables I memorized in the fourth grade.

I make it through a few more sevens, and I guess my calculations are correct, or the doctor is sick of looking at my furrowed brow, but he moves on to the next question.

“Draw a clock face with the hands pointing to 10:30.”

Is that a.m. or p.m.? Ha, ha, very funny. Having a sense of humor must count for something.

He hands me paper and a pen, and I start drawing. While my depiction of a timepiece set for 10:30 is accurate, it looks like it was drawn by the hand of a 3-year-old, and I start getting a puzzled look from the guy in the white coat.

Give me a break. “I’m just really nervous,” I say. “And I’m still trying to remember apple, boat, cat.”

“Those were the three words you said, right?”

When it appears I have passed the test, at least for this year, I breathe a sigh of relief, although I’m sure this scary scene is going to stay with me for a long time. Maybe writing a column about it will be therapeutic.

Actually, the real impetus for my little essay stemmed from a conversation I had recently with my friend Colette in New Zealand.

As women of a certain age, she and I were comparing notes about medical care and cognitive testing for older adults in our respective countries.

I explained to Colette about Medicare’s brain barometer for seniors.

Colette said all her doctor wants to know is, “Can you clip your own toenails?”