Pin Point

Regular readers will know that in the little flat that I share with Saffy and Amanda, we’re prone to short lived bursts of obsessions. You name it, we’ve had it and done it. Gossip Girl, Glee, Gangnam, G.I. Joe. Tick. Sudoku, Siri, Celebrity Anything. Tick. Over the years, we’ve gotten on – and gotten off – the crazy runaway trains of zumba, Farmville, Instagram, Wii, J-Pop, Canto-Pop, K-Pop, Twitter, Facebook, donuts, cupcakes, boybands, girlbands, Steven Tyler, vampires and Lord of the Rings.

            Our flat is littered with the detritus of our devotion. Under my bed is the season 1 DVD of ‘The Osbournes’. The season 2 DVD lies next to it unopened. In one of Amanda’s drawers, you might find a scrapbook of Taylor Lautner pictures in various stages of undress. She’ll deny she has it because her current obsession is with Ryan Gosling, though you can tell she’s about to jump ship for Damian Lewis.

And if you lifted the framed picture of MDNA hanging in Saffy’s bedroom, you’d find a scrappy poster of Madonna circa ‘Like a Virgin’. She was too lazy to even take it down before she put the new one up.

            If you ever wanted to do a study on the short attention span of mindless consumerism, just come knocking at our door. We’ll buy whatever you’re selling. Saffy says that if it was legal in Singapore for people like the Scientologists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons to go knocking on people’s doors, we’d currently be rubbing shoulders with Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

            But then, as Amanda so astutely points out, two weeks later, we’d get bored and want to be Catholics and BFF with the Pope.

            Our current obsession is facial acupuncture.

            It all began during one of Amanda’s Pilates classes (which she’s about to drop because there’s something called TRX training that she’s just dying to try) and she suddenly noticed that her teacher had amazing skin.

            Pamela said that she goes for regular sessions of facial acupuncture with Dr Wang in a TCM clinic along Bendemeer Road. “She’s amazing!” Pamela said as she allowed Amanda deep into her personal space to inspect her epidermis.

            “You’re practically glowing!” Amanda said, eyes wide.

            “I know! She just sticks a few needles in and the skin just feels so much tighter.”

            Saffy later said that it sounded too good to be true.

            “You said that about Milla Jovovich!” Amanda said.

            Saffy’s breasts inflated. “I’m sorry, but can you honestly tell me that ‘Resident Evil’ isn’t the best movie ever?”

            Wisely, Amanda ignored the outburst and continued to inspect her face in her handheld mirror. “I’m starting to get lines around my eyes. Pamela says that can all be fixed. It sounds like it’s better than Botox!”

            “I want to get rid of these vertical lines between my eyebrows,” said Saffy having, for the moment, quickly forgotten about her devotion to Milla’s savage destruction of the Living Dead.

            “They’re called elevenses!” Amanda said with the superior air of someone who’s an amateur dermatologist and rabid follower of ‘Extreme Makeover’. “Pamela says they’re a little more difficult to undo, but Dr Wang can do it.”

            “They make me look so grumpy and angry all the time,” Saffy went on, looking at her reflection in her handheld mirror.

            “But you are grumpy and angry all the time!” Amanda pointed out.

            You could tell that Saffy was extremely put out by this comment, but realized that she was severely limited in her range of responses. So she saved it all up and vented when she met up with Sharyn later.

            “Aiyoh!” Sharyn’s thick glasses fogged up. “Why you people so seow, one? Got nice face, not enough. Must now go to acupuncture and get needles poke you in the face! You all very free, lah! You elsewhere not poke enough, is it?” she asked owlishly.

            “You’re just disgusting, Sharyn!” Saffy said, shifting in her seat. “When I’m looking fresh and gorgeous and my skin is glowing, you’ll be eating your words.”

            “Ay, you don’t be so cheem, can?”

            But by then, it was too late. Like SARS, Saffy’s enthusiasm was so infectious that Sharyn decided that she too was coming along to see Dr Wang. Which is how the four of us have got appointments in two weeks. Amanda says the fact that there is such a long waiting list is a good sign. “She must be good. If she’d said we could see her today, I’d be suspicious.”

            “I hope it’s not going to hurt!” Saffy said.

            “It’ll just be a little prick!”

            Saffy grunted, her elevenses deepening. “Like so many of my dates.”