Cleaning ladies

"Ilagay mo ang channel sa AlDub," she told me, shoving the remote to me as I walked in in my home. 

I decided to be patient and let her watch. And watch. And effing watch some more.  At 3 PM, I told her to leave. I needed to go to UP for a 3:30 PM appointment. There were several major things she failed to do but I asked her to leave just the same.

Her name's Myra. She had been "cleaning" my place since 9 AM that morning. She spent a total of six hours cleaning my place that has two small bedrooms and a bathroom. She probably spent half of the time in front of the television which I turned off before I left to run errands when she arrived.

The following day, I realized she was unable to iron what needed to be ironed. The two electric fans were uncleaned. And most of all, many of my books had their spines facing the wall.

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A week or so later, Dada was cleaning my place.

"Sayang ka, ang ganda mo nagpabaya ka at hindi ka nag-asawa at nag-anak," she brazenly told me. She's a widow approaching her 60s.

"JJ, si Dada ay taga-probinsiya at kailangang turuan sa paglilinis ng bahay, ha?" my friend told me.

I thought Dada needed GMRC lessons more urgently.

But Dada also needed to learn a few logical things: Tissue papers are useless when soaked while cleaning kitchen counters and toilets;  Items used for cleaning need to be cleaned to be usable again; No matter how hot, a flat iron alone cannot make a shirt look pressed right without the help of the right amount of steam; that one does not wipe white walls with rags.

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I later learned that Myra is a college graduate, a scholar of a German group. She's an IT graduate but has her priorities wrong despite major errors that should have taught her lessons. She got pregnant in college and still finished her course. However, she never worked in the formal sector. She relied on whatever help she could get from her European supporters. Her mom's also a college graduate who never worked in a corporate setting.

Myra's college degree makes her making my books' spines face the wall so illogical.

She's a single mom who's neglecting her child who wants to study well and finish any course so he'd have a fighting chance at life. He's asked a lot of people for help.

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Dada is a good person. She's a single mom. She raised three children on her own.

I think I will ask Dada| to work for me again this weekend, see if things will improve with a few instructions on how to do this and that.

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Myra said that the weekend before she took on the job as my weekend cleaning lady, she rejected all jobs that came her way because she needed to watch AlDub.

You do the math.