Paz the Maid

Hello Friends-

Here is a tidbit that I probably didn't mention earlier.

While I chose to eat entirely questionable street food and ride on the back of motorcycle taxis that my mom would disapprove of, I also lived in a pretty sweet condo.

And I also had a maid.

Enter Paz.

Not a once a month cleaning lady. Paz was a twice a week professional maid.

Chinese maids in Shanghai usually charge around 2 bucks an hour. But they steal from you and iron silk stuff and use the vacuum cleaner in unusual places. Okay- they don't all steal but when you pay them the same amount as a medium pizza and you are living in Shanghai, you or your friends are bound to run across a shady lady who doesn't yet understand referrals.

Paz charged 4 bucks an hour. She was from the Philippines. She was a referral from the manager of the Ritz Portman in Shanghai. They left town so she needed a gig and it turned out to be cleaning my place twice a week. She wanted more but I mean- I was never there....

So....Paz cleaned the crap out that place. In addition to the usual deep cleaning, she cleaned and pressed all the laundry, washed the dishes, put all my stuff in better places that I could ever think of and did the grocery shopping for me.

At first I was a little paranoid due to all of my friends' stories about their cleaning ladies jacking their stuff. So I would come home and be looking for cash I left lying around or whatever. I was pretty sure Paz was stealing from me. But then I would always find my dough in a neat little pile in a place that made way more sense than the stupid place I had it in originally.

So basically I would come home from my high flying foriegner job every night only to find out that a lady who makes four bucks an hour is way smarter than I am and probably a harder worker.

The topper was after a couple of months of Paz-work, I was sitting there one morning looking at my running shoes (which spent a lot of time splashing around in the dirty, dirty Shanghai streets). I realized that they were freaking spotless. And then I realized that it wasn't because I was avoiding the putrid mud puddles in the alleys that I was jogging trough. It was because Paz was cleaning those mofos. Either she was an over the top pro- or her workload was very, very light. Either way, I was stunned and amazed....

Probably Paz was not overloaded. I was her only job. Sometimes I would call her and I could hear the TV blasting and all of her Filipina cousins laughing in the background. And it was a stretch to have her show up twice a week since I was never there. But my place was absolutely spotless. Shanghai is on the top ten list of most polluted places in the world, but I will never live in such a spotless condo ever again. Guaranteed.

Besides the topper of having a spotless place and spotless running shoes and never having to do laundry or dishes is having someone do all of your shopping. "All of my shopping" consists of milk, juice, bananas, bottled water and beer.

The topper of toppers is coming home with a hand written note from Paz that says

"Dear Sir,

The laundry is cleaned and ironed, the dishes are done, you room is cleaned, I have purchased the groceries you asked for and the beer is in the fridge.

God Bless You.

Paz"

I want to go back to China..........