"Exciting times are here!" Stanley shrieked into his phone.
"STAN!" typed Carl in our group chat. "I OPENED IT IN THE MIDDLE OF GYM AND PEOPLE ARE NOW STARING AT ME!"
Stanley's response was icy. "Carl darling, you should be thankful that my high-pitch voice message is getting people to stare at you."
"But I'm sorry," Stanley typed. "I'm just very, very excited!"
"And you know when I'm excited, that excitement is palpable!" our sex bunny friend wrote, before posting a gif of a throbbing brinjal in our group chat titled "Just the Boys".
Stanley's throbbing excitement is understandable.
Malaysia and Singapore have both announced a vaccinated travel lane and anything -- even if it's the customs borders -- that spreads wide open like a welcoming courtesan naturally gets Stanley very excited.
Not for me though.
I frown as more and more VTLs are established.
While I can imagine hordes of deprived Singaporeans are now packing their luggage in a frenzy and jogging on the spot until their travel dates arrive, I cannot visualise myself travelling anytime soon.
Unless it's for work, and definitely not for a holiday.
To begin with, a friend who works in tourism labelled me a reluctant traveller.
"It means someone who goes around only because he has no choice," I explain to Carl the dense one, after explaining what VTL stands for and how VTLs work.
"Honey, in my dictionary, someone who goes around only because he has no choice belongs to a very niche and controversial profession," Stanley wrote.
For the last two years, many of us have not been able to travel.
Some of my friends have turned blue from this restriction, complaining at every opportunity about how much they miss travelling.
One friend -- who goes on a holiday at least thrice a year -- immediately booked a flight to Germany after restrictions were eased.
We were informed of his recent travels via carefully-curated IG posts, featuring champagne and satay served in his spacious business class capsule, and subsequent photos of him looking very casual in various states of activities: -- walking, staring, thinking, drinking, eating -- amid scenic postcard-like backdrops.
But for every Showoff Sean, there's always a more measured person to counterbalance the universe.
Nisa my best girl friend says she's not going to travel until 2023, unless God has other plans for her.
Stanley quietly tells me he hopes that God's plans for Nisa's journey -- if it does happen -- would not include an expensive limousine ride that is bound for Mandai.
"Shall we plan for a trip?!" Stanley asks excitedly in the group, his heart no doubt throbbing wildly like his earlier brinjal gif.
"WOW!" Carl replied.
"YES!" Stanley wrote.
"Can we even travel now?!" Carl the dense one asked.
Stanley stopped typing in the group and called me so that he can have an actual adult conversation.
"The answer is no," I said coldly to Stanley who must know that I'm not keen to travel (even before COVID, I hadn't been a big fan of vacations -- weird, I know).
Thing is, I am excited by this latest development.
But I'm excited only because as more and more VTLs are established, it's a sign that things are normalising.
Never mind that the bugs and plague might be unleashed unto our Sunny Island like an exposed Pandora's Box when our borders reopen.
After all, COVID has to be treated like the common flu.
But for now, my passport shall remain untouched, left in a safe place until a special occasion calls for it to be used.
Stanley tells me I need to draw a line between a passport and a pair of sexy red panties.
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