Royal Flush

You know how some people go overseas and they come back with cute little souvenirs of their trip? Like a fridge magnet of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, for instance. Or a tee-shirt.

            And then you have my friend Jill who brings back food. Which makes her an amazing person to be friends with, especially if you like the same kinds of food she does. Specifically, anything that is pork based. Last year, she packed two dozen English pork pies from this shop in London she’s been haunting since her school days. And a few weeks ago, she returned from a trip to France with, literally, half a pig.

            “What do you mean?” Amanda asked when I told her.

            “What do you mean what do I mean? She packed half a pig into her luggage,” I repeated. “In her Louis Vuitton Monogram suitcase!”

            “What happened to the other half?” Saffy asked.

            Both Amanda and I turned to look at her. To her credit, Saffy noticed the look. “What? That’s a legitimate question.”

            Amanda turned back to me. “What is she going to do with half a pig?”

            I hazarded a guess. “Give it to her maid to cook?”

            From the sidelines, a voice piped up. “Was it a small pig?” Saffy asked. “Like, I mean, how big is it? And wouldn’t it have smelled?”

            “Well, I’m sure it was vacuum-sealed,” I said. “They wouldn’t have just wrapped it in butcher paper. That’s only logical.”

            “The logical thing would have been to buy half a pig from Huber’s,” Saffy said firmly, “and not schlep it 13 hours from France to the tropics. To pack it into a Louis Vuitton bag tells me that logic was completely absent the minute Jill stepped into that butcher shop. And besides, how did she get that pig back to her hotel? Was it a cab? Or did she take the Metro?”

            I turned to Amanda. “A little help here?” But her eyes had completely glazed over. Saffy wasn’t done yet. “And if she got it delivered to her hotel, can you imagine what the concierge would have thought? I mean, it’s half a pig!” Saffy shook her head in amazement. “There’s no shopping bag in the world that’s big enough to hide the fact that it’s a vacuum sealed pig!”

            Then a few days ago, Amanda went to Tokyo for a meeting. That evening, she FaceTimed us. “Guess what?”

            “You’re marrying the Crown Prince?” Saffy said immediately. “What? These things happen. That’s how the Crown Princess of Denmark became Crown Princess!”

            You could literally see Amanda give her head a little shake like she was getting rid of some water in her ear. “Shut up, Saf! No, I got a Toto!”

            It really was gratifying to see Saffy’s mouth open and shut several times. She looked just like a goldfish.

            “You mean you won Toto?” I said helpfully.

            “No. I mean I got a Toto! As in the toilet!”

            Saffy later said to Sharyn that there were so many ways she could have imagined the conversation with Amanda going, but buying an actual toilet bowl was not one of them.

            “Who buys a toilet bowl while on a business trip?”

            “On any trip,” I said.

            “Wah, she really like Toto, hor? Singapore got no Toto, meh?” Sharyn said. “I ever try once before in a restaurant in Loh-bertson Quay! So many button to press, I so scare, I neh-ber flush and run out!”

            Saffy put up a hand. “Wait, what? You didn’t flush?”

            “All the button in Japanese, how I know what to press?”

            “She does have a point,” I told Saffy. “Imagine if she’d pressed the wash button and she got spritzed?”

            “Aiyoh!” Sharyn sighed, clearly congratulating herself on both her cowardice and foresight, but Saffy had already moved on.

            “How is Amanda going to bring that toilet back? Is she going to check it in? How much must the thing weigh? What is wrong with some people?” Saffy looked up at the ceiling to give the question proper attention.

            “Ay, I ask you, ah,” Sharyn said. “Toto run on electricity, right?”

            I nodded. “Yes, you have to plug it into a wall socket. I don’t think anything works otherwise.”

            “Oh-kaaaay….” Sharyn drawled. “So what happen if electricity not working?”

            “Well, the seat-warmer won’t work…” I trailed off. I was already seeing the end point of this conversation.

            Saffy, always the last one to leave a party, looked down from the ceiling. “What?”

            “It won’t flush without electricity!” I said.

            It took a while, but Saffy got there in the end. And it wasn’t pretty.