Face Off

After much vacillation and uncoordinated timing, Saffy, Amanda and I are now all officially off Facebook and signed up to Instagram.

            “Oh my God,” Amanda sighed the other day, “I feel so relaxed now! Honestly, I didn’t realise just how stressful being on Facebook was!”
            Saffy’s magnificent bosom trembled. “I know! No more reading rants about how stupid people are, or watching clips of people screaming at each other!”

            “Or scary American politicians saying scary things!” Amanda added.

            “And no more to-the-minute updates of some bomb going off somewhere that we can no longer go to!” I said.

            We paused a moment to contemplate our news lives free of the negative energy of Facebook.

            After a while, a thought occurred to me. “I am going to miss those cute videos of dogs though.”

            Saffy swooned. “Oooh, yes! I love those! Especially the ones with sleeping puppies or playing in the snow!”

            “And pictures of my adorable baby niece. My stupid sister isn’t on Instagram though I’ve begged her to,” Amanda sniffed.

            “Oh, that’s a shame!” Saffy said, her lips pursed into a moue of sympathy.

            “I’m also going to miss all those inspirational TED Talks! Instagram doesn’t have them!”

            Leave it to Sharyn to douse our wavering commitment to leave Facebook.

            “Aiyoh, you all, ah! One day, cannot tahan Facebook, next day change mind. How liddat? Good ting you not in charge of army!”

            Saffy stiffened. “I’m not sure there’s a rule that says we can’t have regrets, Shazz!”

            “Aiyah, what for have regret? Life so short, orredi! Regret is if you don’t order another portion of durian chendol, right or not? Jason, hor? Dis sort of ting no need regret, one!”

            Amanda later said privately that with this kind of life philosophy, Sharyn would make the world’s worst marriage counselor. “What kind of food analogy would she use for a divorcing couple? ‘Don’t bother, just have another round of laksa!’”

            “She’d probably add a ‘lor’ in there somewhere,” Saffy observed.

            Meanwhile, I’ve been exploring my new world on Instagram. It’s a surreal experience to peek into the private lives of people you only know about from reading trashy tabloid magazines at the hairdresser. The first time I watched Cindy Crawford cook burger in her kitchen, I had an out of body experience of the kind normally associated with…well, watching Cindy Crawford cook burger in her kitchen.

            “I never thought of people like her being real, if you know what I mean,” I said to Saffy. “She was cooking a burger! And looking really gorgeous, too, I have to say.”

            “I know. I’m following Ricky Martin and I think it’s so weird to see his rumpled morning face! I feel like he’s actually Facetiming me!”

            Amanda says she’s completely addicted to Instagram and wonders why it’s taken her so long to get onto it.

            “We’re really really late adopters, that’s why,” Saffy said the other day at breakfast as she took a video of her French toast, holding her phone with one hand and dribbling honey with her other.

Amanda leaned in. “But do you think people will judge me if they look at the list of people I follow and they find Kim Kardashian and The Specky Blonde?”

“I don’t think anyone cares,” Saffy said as she put down her jug of honey and then scrolled through her filters. “Now, I’m thinking I should use Perpetua for this one.”

Sharyn says she’s massively in love with Team Brando. “I doh no who he is but, wah lau, eh, he so handsome! His boyfriend lagi handsome! I tink hor, if dey have chil-dren, sure grow up and become supermodel one!”

“I want to have Ricky Martin’s children,” Saffy sighed. “I want to wake up next to him every morning and have his children!”

Amanda is obsessed with Peepy and Mother Lee. Well, to be accurate, she’s obsessed with Peepy’s ever changing collection of Hermes bags. “Does he work, I wonder?”

Barney Chen, who is also obsessed with the mother and son team, says they make their fortune selling gold leaf to temples in Thailand. “Isn’t that just genius?”

“Totally!” Amanda said. “Money w0uld just pour in every second of the day!”

All of which leaves us all with very little time during the day to do any actual work. Saffy said she spent all of Friday afternoon watching Dr Pimple Popper. “If only there was a job where I could watch her all day! I’d be so good at it!”

“Yes, if only,” Amanda said, as she scrolled through Justin Bieber’s feed.