Pierre Pressure

So, this happened a few months ago.

            Amanda looked up from her latest issue of 8DAYS. “How am I going to read this thing once it goes online?” she asked the world at large.

            From the other end of the sofa, Saffy said, “Well, isn’t it going to be more or less the same content?”

            “Yes, but it’s not the same as flipping a page, is it?

            “I guess not. Apparently, flipping pages is very 90s,” Saffy sighed. Which then reminded her of the time she was in Boulder in Colorado for work. One day after a meeting, she and a colleague walked past a restaurant specializing in pulled pork, and she did a double take because it was called ‘Pork and Mindy’. 

            Saffy barked out a laugh. “Oh my God, that’s so funny! Nanoo, nanoo!!”

            Candi looked up at the awning and blinked. “Why? What’s so funny?”

            Still laughing, Saffy said, “What do you mean? That’s hysterical! ‘Pork and Mindy’! You don’t get it?”

            She was rewarded with a bemused look. The same one, she said later, you give your granny when she shows up at the dinner table wearing her bra on the outside of her blouse.

            Saffy sucked in her breath. “You’ve never heard of ‘Mork and Mindy’, that seventies show?”

            Comprehension broke on Cindi’s “Oh, ‘That 70’s Show’! Yes, of course, but that’s such an old show, lah. But was there a Mork and Mindy in it?”

            For days after, it was all Saffy could talk about. “How could she not have heard of ‘Mork and Mindy’?”

            “Hie-ah!” Sharyn said. “Young people today, where got watch seventy show, one?”

            Saffy’s bosom inflated. “But it’s where Robin Williams became famous! And we were in Boulder, where the show is set!”

            “How you expect Candi to know dat?” Sharyn shook her head. “She born in 1995, you know! The udder day, I ask her to help me trow out the old fax machine in the back room and half an hour later, she come back and ask me what does the fax machine look like! I almost vomit blood, ah, I tell you!”

            “It’s so awful how just when you’re getting used to something, it gets replaced,” Saffy said, casting a lingering look down her list of company employees.

            “Like books, lor!” Sharyn sighed. “My son tell me Eight Day is going online, oh-so!”

            “Yes, well, don’t bring that up with Amanda. She’s so upset by the whole thing,” Saffy said. “She says it’s ridiculous to expect anyone to read 8DAYS on a phone.”

            “Is liddat, one! Technology, mah! One day, a computer will be doing our HR job!”

            “Choy!” Saffy said automatically.

            “Yah, boy!”

            Amanda recently said she was considering starting a petition to keep 8DAYS as a printed magazine. To emphasize her point, she picked up her latest issue and waved it at us. “I mean, look at this. So useful! You can roll it up to bash a cockroach. You can sit on it when the chair is wet. You can…”

            “Oh my God!” Saffy moaned. She snatched the magazine out of Amanda’s hands and peered at the cover. “Is that Pierre Png? He is so gorgeous. I can literally feel my ovaries catching fire!”

“I’m sure you don’t mean literally,” Amanda began.

Saffy would not be derailed. “How has he not aged a single day?”

            “Isn’t it sickening?” Amanda said. “He looks like he’s 18!”

            Saffy brought the magazine closer to her face to give Pierre’s face the full benefit of her adoring gaze. “I bet you he’s been air-brushed! What is he now, 56? How do you look that good at that age?”
            “Alamak!” Sharyn exclaimed. “Pierre Pung where got 56?”

            Never one to be daunted by being called out for spreading fake news, Saffy changed the subject. “I mean, look at those eyebrows! Are they even real? They’re so thick! I swear, he’d be such a good spokesman for Browhaus!”

            “Did you see his stomach muscles in that ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ trailer?” Amanda sighed. 

            “Did I see it!” Saffy told her. “I paused the scene and practically lickedmy computer screen!”

            “Ay-yuhhhh!” Sharyn said, her mouth puckering up. 

Of course, a few days later, when Saffy and Sharyn were in the office collectively drooling over the same 8DAYS cover of Pierre Png, Candi happened to walk by and asked, “Hey, who’s this guy?” 

Sharyn later reported that Saffy’s jaw dropped open. “Wah, damn funny! She look like a steam fish!”

“It’s ridiculous!” Saffy puffed. “That Candi has the IQ of a blood-clot!”

“Wah, so cheem!” Sharyn said.