Miriam and Paolo at your service

Extra! Extra! recently had another one of its Double Dare episodes and this time it had Miriam Quiambao working as a janitress and as a gasoline girl – and Paolo Bediones as a busboy in a fast food center.

As part of a janitorial team, Miriam was assigned to clean some areas at the RCBC building in Makati.

Now, cleaning is a tough job. That is, if you are really meticulous about it. Actually, it’s one task I hate most. But I did it to earn extra money when I was studying in the States. For $11.78 per hour, I mopped the floors after I was done with my regular job of stacking canned goods and driving the forklift at the commissary.

Unfortunately, mopping floors wasn’t really my calling. I was so bad at it, the supervisor begged me to stop doing it and asked me to just stick to my usual assignment of stacking canned goods and operating the forklift.

But how did Miriam Quiambao fare as a janitress for a day? Initially, I couldn’t really tell because they weren’t showing the actual result of her work. But when she was made to clean the floor of the RCBC lobby, a Caucasian-looking man almost tripped over her mop. So I guess that’s a minus point for her.

When she was made to clean the toilet bowl in the bathroom, she admitted on camera that it was the first time in her obviously charmed life to do such dirty task. But she was willing to do it – if only to prove to people that even a beauty queen like her can actually clean a "throne."

Sporting a pair of yellow rubber gloves, she bent down and started scrubbing with a sponge (I wonder why she didn’t use one that had a handle) the inside part of that cream ceramic toilet bowl – all the way to the bottom. (She really dipped her gloved hand in it.)

At that point, I was about ready to get up from my chair and give Miriam a standing ovation – until I saw what she did in the latter part. You see, the sponge she used in scrubbing the inside of the toilet bowl was also the same sponge she used in wiping off the underside of the toilet seat. Ugh!

Now, I myself have to admit that though I’ve cleaned every part of our house (including the roof), I have yet to touch the bathroom. (You know who cleans the bathroom well? Rosanna Roces – so swears her husband, Tito Molina.)

Frankly, I can’t tell the difference between Lysol and muriatic acid – except that the latter cleaning agent can burn your skin if you’re not careful with it. But then, I can tell that the procedure Miriam followed in cleaning the toilet bowl was wrong. By using the sponge that she used in cleaning the inside of the toilet bowl on the toilet seat, she actually spread more germs in that bathroom.

In the past, I’ve given Miriam high marks in her show’s Double Dare episodes. So far, she has performed the job of a special offer girl (where she sold soap and shampoo door-to-door), a beauty parlor assistant, a nanny in an orphanage and even that of a sampaguita vendor (a rather tough assignment because she had to fight with other vendors over "territorial" rights). For doing all these odd jobs, I gave her the thumbs-up.

But as a janitress for a day, sorry Miriam, you do get a failing grade from this viewer. You may be the Pinoys’ beloved Miss Universe first runner-up, but you’ll never be Miss Good Housekeeping.

Paolo fared better in his job as a busboy at a fast food center. Prior to this Double Dare episode of Extra! Extra! I thought that being a busboy in an eatery was the easiest job in the world. After all, how difficult is it to be clearing tables?

Well, it didn’t turn out to be all that easy. For one thing, you really need to move fast – as in really fast. Especially if you work in a fast food joint where there is a quick turnover of customers.

As a busboy, Paolo was subjected to all sorts of insults courtesy of some ill-tempered customers. (Obviously, they didn’t recognize him.) A well-dressed young lady, for instance, complained that he was slow in clearing the table – and said so in a not-so-nice tone. Then, he made the mistake of removing a plate of food that was still being consumed by another lady customer (who just stood up to get water) and, boy, did he get it from her!

Now, I said that he did well as a busboy because – watching him work – he seemed very meticulous in every step of the way. When cleaning the table, for example, he made sure it shone like "the top of the Chrysler Building." (Wasn’t that a line from Annie?) Of course, that slowed him down. But then, if you ask me, that’s how I like a cleaning job done.

The show’s feature on Miriam Quiambao as a gasoline girl proved to be quite uneventful. For one thing, her face was immediately recognized by most of the customers lining up for gas. So there goes her cover.

In the beginning of the show, it was mentioned that Paolo was also going to work as a fisherman for a day. But for some reason, this segment was never shown.

But in spite of that missing segment, the show was able to drive an important message to the viewers: That we should be nice to these little people because what they’re doing isn’t really all that easy. Besides, I don’t think it would kill us if we were nice to others.