Passion Made Possible

The other day, Saffy walked into our apartment with a bunch of mail she’d collected from the letterbox downstairs. As she kicked off her shoes at the door, she stopped flipping through the envelopes, looked up and announced, in ringing tones: “OK, I am now officially an auntie Ah-Soh!”

            From the comfortable depths of our sofa where she was paging through the pages of Vogue, Amanda looked up and stared at Saffy. “I’m glad you’ve finally come to your senses. I keep telling you that dress does you nofavours!”

            Saffy turned pink. She opened her mouth, but her heart really wasn’t in it for a sarcastic retort. Her bosom deflated back down to DEFCON 5 level.

            “Look at this!” She waved an envelope in our direction.

            “We don’t have X-ray vision, Saff,” Amanda murmured.

            “It’s a PassionCard!” Saffy announced in the same fear-struck tone that Sigourney Weaver used in ‘Alien3’ when she ran hysterically into the cafeteria.

            I sucked in my breath. 

“Yay! It arrived!” Sharyn cheered from the kitchen where she was unpacking lunch she’d brought. 

Amanda looked puzzled. “What is a Passion Card?”

            Saffy paused and stared. “How do you not know what a Passion Card is?”

            “It’s a discount card,” I told Amanda, slowly and carefully articulating my syllables. “It’s usually carried in the purses of aunties who shop at Sheng Siong.”

Saffy nodded. She sat down in the armchair next to us. “And it gets you discounts at Guardian and Giant Tampines!”

Amanda struggled up onto her elbows. “And so why do you have one?”

It turns out that for the past few months, Saffy has been on an austerity drive. One consequence is that rather than buy her facial cleanser and moisturizer and other beauty accessories from her usual pit-stop at Sephora, she now haunts the brightly lit aisles of Guardian. 

“You buy your toiletries from Guardian?” Amanda asked in a tone that suggested Saffy might as well use day-old hummus for a face mask. 

Saffy stiffened. “Well, excuse me if I can’t afford a five hundred dollar jar of La Mer eye cream like you can! And this is what happens when you are on an austerity drive. You have to make sacrifices!”
            “Yes, but still. Guardian?”

“You make it sound like it’s a Patpong wet market!” Saffy complained.

Apparently, each time Saffy rocked up to the till at Guardian, the same bored Malay cashier would ask, “Are you a Passion Card member?” And each time, Saffy would say, no, until eventually Sharyn said, “Ay, why you not Passion Card member, ah? You can collect points you know and spend at 7-11!”

Saffy frowned. “But I never buy anything at 7-11!”

Sharyn waved her hands. “Market Place also can use!”

“But I’m on an austerity drive! The last time I shopped at Market Place, I spent $80 and came out with two oranges and a box of tissues!”

“Where got? I was with you dat time and you oh-so bought that pee-not gig-oh!”

“What?” Amanda asked. 

“Pinot Grigio,” Saffy translated. “Honestly, this woman has the memory of an elephant.”

“And the pronunciation of a lisping rabbit,” Amanda added.

“Wah, you all, ah, so rude!”

For reasons that escaped everyone, Sharyn happened to have a spare Passion Card application form in her handbag, which she now fished out and made Saffy fill in on the spot. “Nah! You just fill in, I send in for you!” she instructed. “Later you tank me when you collect one point for every dollar you spend!”

Which is why a month later, the red and black card arrived in our mail.

Saffy turned the newly minted plastic over. “Hey, look, it’s also an MRT card!”

Meanwhile, I was scrolling through the website. “Oh, and look, you can also use it at Yun Nam Hair Care and Eagle Eye Centre and London Weight Management!”

Amanda, whose retail experiences are usually confined to gratifyingly expensive experiences within the LVMH group, looked blank. “Should these names mean anything to me?”

“I’m being supportive,” I told her. 

“It really is amazing all the places I can use this card at!” Saffy mused as she glanced through the accompanying brochure.

Sharyn glowed. “Yah, lor! I tell you, you don’t believe me! Dat day, hor, my husband sign up for Hokkien karaoke course!”

Amanda stared hard at the ceiling before looking back down. “What is that?” she asked, but you could tell she was already regretting asking.

“Is same as Ing-grish karaoke, but you sing in Hokkien!”

“Well, that’s a useful life skill,” Saffy said.

“Hannor!”

Sleep Cycle

I know some hotels make a big song and dance about how quiet their rooms are. One website I was on recently mentioned ‘whisper-quiet cocoons’ which, for some reason, made me imagine a parasite alien might burst out of my chest in the middle of the night. I wanted to write to Trip Advisor and say that at ‘Hotel XYZ, no one can hear you scream’. 

            Me, I like a bit of light noise in my room. A distant traffic hum from, say, the CTE is ideal. I have tinnitus, which, for those of you who aren’t hypochondriacs, refers to the ringing in your ears. In Singapore, I don’t notice it much, but when I’m in the English countryside, I can’t sleep at all. It’s so quiet the volume on the ringing is maxed up. 

            “Seriously, it’s no wonder all the Brits just packed up and moved to India!” I told Saffy the other day at breakfast. 

            She cocked her head and gave the matter some thought. “This tinnitus thing,” she said, her bosom trembling gently like a perfectly made tau foo fa. “You say it’s a ringing noise. But what does it sound like?”

            “What do you mean what does it sound like? It sounds like a constant ringing! You know those old-fashioned phone ring tones that go ring-ring? With tinnitus, it’s just riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. It never ends. It’s awful!”

Saffy pursed her lips and nodded sagely. “Interesting.”

            It turns out I’m not alone. Later that day at lunch, Sharyn announced that for the first fifteen years of her life, her family moved five times and every single home had been next to a construction site. “Wah, day and night, hor, they got piling and jackhammer andtang-tang-tang!”

            Amanda turned to Saffy with a raised eyebrow.

            “Piling machine,” said Saffy, justly famed Sharyn Whisperer. 

            “So, now hor,” Sharyn went on, “if got no noise, I cannot sleep. Dat’s why when my new neighbour play karaoke all night, wah, so shiok!”

            All of which explains the slight frisson of excitement that swept through certain members of the Sleepless in Singapore Club when news hit via various social media channels that easyHotel had just launched a new lullaby service for its guests.

            I WhatsApped the screenshot to Sharyn. “Did you see this?” 

            Apparently, the world is full of people like me and Sharyn for whom total silence equals a bad night’s sleep. So, the thoughtful folk at easyHotel have pulled together a playlist that includes the sound of a washing machine in the next room, someone vacuuming, a clothes dryer in full spin. My favourite, of course, is the sound of traffic.

            Sharyn pinged back: “How cum got no construction site?”

            “You should write in and suggest!”

            Leave it to Amanda to read the fine print. “First of all, I’m never ever staying anywhere that’s called easyHotel! I don’t have anything in my wardrobe that will go with that. And secondly, it says here the service is only available in Glasgow, Newcastle and Croydon! Do I know where Croydon is?”

            “Isn’t that where they had those riots in 2011?” Saffy piped up, surprising even herself by her steady grasp of historical events. 

            “Oh God, yes, that’s right,” Amanda sighed, grateful that she now had two valid reasons to never try out this new-fangled promotion that the easyHotel is calling a ‘nodcast’. 

            “It’s just genius though,” Saffy went on. “Just think about it, the permutations are endless! When I was growing up, I fell asleep listening to my parents yell at each other. It was my lullaby. I think it’s why I always fall asleep during a horror movie! Like ‘Saw’! Theoretically, I’ve watched all seven. Or is it eight? Anyway, the truth is, I’ve no idea what happened in any of them! I’ve fallen asleep right after the first death! In every single one of them. It’s really tragic!”

            “You and Sharyn should write in to easyHotel,” I urged. “This is good customer feedback.”

            Apparently, Amanda doesn’t think so. “Can you imagine,” she told her friend Margaret, “if you check into the easyHotel and one side, there’s the sound of a construction site, and on the other, it’s someone screaming as they’re been sawed in half?”

            “Wait, they made seven movies about people being sawed in half?” Margaret asked.

            “I have no idea. For all I know, the movies are about orphans who get adopted by Oprah!” Amanda told her. 

            “I would sleep so well if I were adopted by Oprah,” Margaret observed.

            

             

            

Mixed Messages

It’s so interesting to me how people can have such different personalities. For instance, Amanda will freely admit to anyone that she’s an avowed follower of trends. When the bubble tea craze started, she was the first in line to investigate opening a franchise. When castella cakes wobbled into our lives, she scoured the island for the finest version. And when Céline started selling its US$600 plastic bags, she loyally bought two, so that like a true blue Sheng Siong auntie, she could double up by putting one inside the other. 

            Saffy, on the other hand, waited till the iPhone X came out before she committed to the iPhone7. “I just want to make sure all the kinks have been ironed out first.”

            “Wah lau, eh,” said Sharyn. “What for you buy two model old phone? No discount, some more!”

            Saffy shrugged. “I don’t see the point of getting what everyone else has.” To christen her new phone, she downloaded Candy Crush.

            Sharyn was astonished. “Hah? Candy Crush? This is not 2016, you know!”

            Saffy shrugged again. “I don’t care. I’m on Level 35 now and I’m completely stuck! I can’t get rid of all the fruits in 17 moves! It’s driving me insane! And the stupid thing keeps telling me I’ve used up all my lives and I have to wait half an hour before I start again!”

            “Why you don’t buy more lives?” said Sharyn, Singapore’s undisputed Candy Crush Queen.

            Saffy sucked in her breath. “No way. I’m not giving some random website my account details. Who knows who they’ll sell it to?”

            “Facebook probably,” Amanda said, darkly. 

            Saffy’s bosom inflated. “Exactly! Hey, so, can you help me win, Shazz? I’m sure it’s just a matter of me using some hammer or anvil, but I can’t quite figure it out.”

            Sharyn’s eyes, magnified to the size of a dinner plate behind her Coke bottle-thick spectacles, squinted. “Cannot. I have to go to my Thermomix demo-stration now!”

            Saffy paused. You could practically see her mentally rewind the sentence.

            “Uhm, what?” she said eventually.

            “My Ther-mo-mix demo-stra-tion!” Sharyn said slowly. “I tink I am going to buy one.” She noticed Saffy’s look. “Ay, you don’t know, ah? Thermomix! My sister got one and she say change her life.”

            Nobody was the least bit surprised when Amanda piped up with: “It’s a cooking appliance. It chops, stirs, simmers, cooks, sautes, and blends. It’s the latest kitchen craze, and if I actually knew how to cook, I’d be getting one too!”
            Sharyn nodded. “Yah, what Amanda say! Ay, Saffy, you come with me, lah!”

            Which is how Saffy found herself accompanying Sharyn to Bedok where their friend Ann was demonstrating the life-changing qualities of the Thermomix. Imagine our shock when Saffy came home later that afternoon lugging a brand new TM5. 

            Amanda sighed. “Oh. My. God.” 

            “This thing is amazing!” Saffy panted, blowing a strand of hair from her face, as she dragged the box into the kitchen. “It can even cook congee! And you know how I love congee!”

            Amanda followed Saffy, shooting a glance behind her shoulder at me. “But the last time you made congee, you set the machine on fire and nearly burned down the whole flat!”

            “Well, the TM5 does it all for you. It even weighs the rice and measures the water!” Saffy straightened up and sighed. “At least, I think that’s what Ann says. Oh, it was so life-changing that demo! She made kaya and custard. The most divine rempah. She even made bolognaise sauce. She just threw in the raw ingredients and the machine just did the rest. The best part?” Saffy paused to draw breath. “It even cleans itself!”

            Apparently, Ann’s husband, who also sold the machines, had offered to deliver it and set up a private demonstration, but Saffy was so emotionally overcome by the TM5 that she told him to come another time. “I need to be alone with this,” she told him, her bosom straining dangerously against her tight tee-shirt. Apparently, Mok later told his wife, who told Sharyn, that he was concerned Saffy was going to do something with the TM5 it was not engineered for. 

            “Like what, ah?” Sharyn asked. 

            Meanwhile, the machine has been carefully unpacked and lifted, like the Holy Grail, onto the kitchen counter. And there it sits. A single onion has yet to be fed into its maw. Every so often, Saffy will stop and stare at it in adoration. 

            Amanda thinks it would be so funny if someone told Saffy the TM6 is coming out next week. 

            

            

Class Action

My friend Maya was fretting the other day at lunch. 

            “I don’t know what to do with Daniel!” she said, picking at her kale salad. 

            “What’s he done now?” 

            “His school has mid-term holidays in the US, so he’s flying home, but I don’t know what to dowith him.”

            Saffy looked up from her roast cod. “You make it sound like you’re assembling an Ikea cupboard!”

            Maya sighed. “He wanted to go skiing in Niseko, but the season is over, so, I was thinking I could take him to Taiwan.”

            Saffy frowned. “Why don’t you just leave him to it at home? Why do you need to do anything?”

            Maya looked astonished. “We have to dosomething! It’s his holiday!”

            Saffy put her fork down as her bosom inflated, once again confirming my suspicion that she can’t breathe and eat at the same time. “You know, when I was away at school in Australia, I never came home the entire five years? My parents said they weren’t spending a fortune on my school fees andairfare three times a year! Back me up here, Jason!”

            I shrugged. “I’m with her on this one, Maya.”

Maya’s eyes widened. “What, so you guys never saw your parents the entire time you were away?”

“Oh, no, I saw them plenty. It was a great excuse for them to hop on a plane for a holiday. But they just never saw the point of having me come home at such great expense. Although,” I added, as a memory resurfaced, “my sister once wheedled her way back to Singapore in her second year, but my parents decided they wouldn’t be around and went off on a month-long Mediterranean cruise leaving her all alone at home.” 

Saffy leaned in. “Don’t you think this would be a great opportunity for Daniel to travel around America with his friends?”

“He’s only 17!”

Saffy looked triumphant. “My point exactly! He’s 17. Raging hormones. Hot temptations. Pool parties and wild drunken orgies! He should be living it up!” She noticed our look. “What? I’ve watched ‘Riverdale’! That’s how kids roll today!”

Later back at home, Saffy said it just amazed her how spoilt some kids are. “Can you imagine being able to come home for mid-term holidays?” she said, lying fully flat on the sofa and staring at the cobweb on our ceiling. 

“And then being taken skiing!” I added. “And he’s only 17!”

“At 17, I was lucky if I got a phone call from my parents on my birthday,” Saffy sighed. “They only ever called me if something bad happened. Of course, now, they can’t do a number two without calling to tell me all about it.”

When I was growing up, we didn’t get on a plane with our parents till we were started high school. My mother was of the view that her children should not be allowed to see the inside of an airport till she was absolutely certain they could sit still in economy class without fidgeting, complaining or fighting for at least five continuous hours. 

“Wait. Your parents flew economy class?” Amanda asked. 

I barked out a laugh. “Yeah right! Are you mad? Of course not! But when we were finally allowed to fly, we flew economy while they turned left into Satay Class.”

“Ay, I ask you,” Sharyn piped up. “Business class really got satay, ah?”

“Only on SQ, Shazz,” Saffy said. “Or so I’m told, since I’ve never flown Satay Class.”

“I oh-so!”

Amanda waved her hands. “Wait, wait! So you’re saying that your family flew in separatecabins?”

“Still do,” I told her. “My parents think it’s disgraceful the way my brother, sister and I get on a plane. My mother once said we dress like we’re on our way home from laying sewage pipes in Paya Lebar. The last time I scrapped together enough points to fly Satay Class with them, they upgraded themselves to Wedgewood Class just so they wouldn’t be seen with me.”

Sharyn paused. “Hah? Wedgewood? Sim-mee dai chee?”

“The Suites,” I said. “They serve you food on Wedgewood fine bone china.”

You could tell Sharyn was impressed because her eyes were abnormally enlarged behind her Coke bottle-thick spectacles. “Wah! Issit?”

“Your parents are real bad-ass,” Amanda said with approval.

Meanwhile, Maya texted to say that she’s upgrading Daniel to Satay Class for his flight home. “Poor thing, it’s nearly 20 hours. How to fly economy class?” she wrote.

“I would have hated Daniel if we’d been at school together,” Saffy decided.

Ever competitive, Amanda said she’d have hated Maya.