I tell you. You know that kind of person who treats plain water like it’s some kind of literal poison? Yes, that is exactly him. The other day we were eating at the hawker centre, and I told him to just get a cup of warm water, and you know what this guy replied?
“Water no taste, very boring leh.”
Boring?! Excuse me! Since when did drinking water become a Netflix series that needs to entertain you? Water is water! It’s meant to hydrate your organs so you don’t drop dead in this crazy 34-degree Singapore heat, not give your tongue a rollercoaster ride.
Every single day, his blood stream must be running on 90% sugar syrup and 10% caffeine. Morning reach office, haven’t even put down his laptop bag, he’s already holding one massive iced caramel macchiato or a Kopi C gao gao. Lunchtime comes, confirm must order iced lemon tea or Teh Peng from the drinks stall. Then come 3 PM, the dreaded afternoon slump, out comes the delivery app to order bubble tea.
And don’t even get me started on his BBT order. You think he orders 0% or 25% sugar like a health-conscious adult? No! He goes for the 100% full sugar, plus golden pearls, plus thick cheese foam, until the cup looks like a metabolic science experiment gone wrong. I look at it also my pancreas hurts for him.
I always tell him, “Bro, you drink like this every day, next time not only you get kencing manis (diabetes), your kidneys will produce stones so big you can use them to play five stones.” But he just waves me off and says, “Aiyah, young mah, metabolism high.” What high metabolism? You sit in front of the computer from 9 to 6, the only thing high is your blood sugar level!
The most jialat part is, after drinking all these sweet, milky, sticky concoctions, he will still have the cheek to complain, “Aiyoh, why my throat so dry ah? Why I so tired today?”
Hello! Because you are chronically dehydrated! Your body is screaming for H2O, but you keep giving it brown sugar liquid. Of course your throat is dry lah! You are literally pickling your own internal organs from the inside out!
And let’s talk about the money. In Singapore, plain water is practically free. Our tap water is so clean, you can just drink it straight from the kitchen sink. But no, Mr. Fancy Pants must spend $7 on a cup of premium bubble tea every single day. Calculate lah, one month how much already? Can easily pay for a CDC voucher’s worth of groceries, or slowly save up to offset your BTO renovation costs. But no, he’d rather invest in his future medical bills.
Honestly, I give up. Next time he complains he is thirsty, I’m just going to buy a bottle of mineral water, paste a sticker on it that says “0% Sugar Transparent Bubble Tea (No Pearls)” and force it down his throat. Maybe then he will finally drink something that doesn’t immediately attract a colony of ants if you spill one drop on the table. So ridiculous, sia!