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!”