When the Eva Baby Soap Task was briefed to the Housemates, it was clear that today was going to get silly! After being told that they would have to “wind the clock back a few years”, the Housemates were ever-so-casually-informed that they would find in the storeroom their outfits for the day: a diaper, T-shirt, bib, socks, pacifier and bonnet. Bonnets? When they said they would be rewinding back a few years, we think they may have meant a century or two.
“I’ll never take the men in this House seriously after this Task,” said Angel, and we found ourselves starting to agree, especially when we bore witness to Yousef and Michael – both grown men, need we remind you – being dressed by Angel and Tega, respectively. Why would you allow national television cameras to capture you like that?
What really took the cake, though, was the Housemates’ insistence that they absolutely must proceed to wail and scream like the world’s most annoying babies. Real children aren’t that annoying. Not even close.
Once attired as Big Brother’s bundles of joy, they were told to await further instructions – quite the ask for a series of infants. Then, after a time of us having to rub our eyes and confirm we were actually seeing a group of adults wearing diapers, those instructions arrived.
In the Arena, the Housemates were told that the Eva Baby bathtub provided contained a certain number of rubber duckies and that each ducky was worth a certain number of points. They were to dive into the tub, collect as many duckies as possible, and then add the points together. What followed was 20+ men and women diving into an oversized ballpit – filled with balloons – hunting plastic toys for five minutes.
Some of the Housemates struggled to carry all the duckies they had collected, but others were more pragmatic; they went straight into the diapers. On a side note, these are some foul-mouthed babies!
Once the buzzer sounded to signal the end of the round, the choice of balloons over actual water was clear; there was barely anything left inside the tub. When it came to the count, Peace was the clear leader, with a total of 133 points, followed by Angel with 82 and Boma with 79. On the other end of the scale was JMK, with 0 – which is impressive in its own way, really.
Then, came the crawl race. No rubber duckies, thankfully. Instead, it came down to the fastest Housemate, who would have 23 points added to their total for the day. Their times weren’t given to them, but Jaypaul and Cross seemed to be very quick. Then, the Housemates were told to familiarise themselves with the Eva Soap product cards that came with their outfits, head inside and wait for part two of the Eva Baby Task – it seemed that some kind of test was on the horizon.
After getting dressed in gowns and mortarboards, the Housemates geared up for the next part of their Task; reliving another stage of life (although we're not sure if graduation is a stage of life everybody shares, as there are other ways to succeed). The Housemates were each required to pick a question about Eva Soap products from a box, hand it to the Head of House and then answer it. Each right answer would earn the Housemate in question five points. A wrong answer would... well, you know.
Questions ranged from knowing whether or not newborn's cried without tears, how old babies could be to use Eva Soap and how to spell "pacifier" backwards. It was a mixed bag of answers, of which we'll spare you the details, except for the bit where there was some embarrassment – one of the answers provided on the card was, in fact, incorrect. A simple typo, but still – kinda funny.
Then came the fourth and final part of the Task. Housemates were required to tell each other the names they had been called over the course of their life, which had made them lose confidence or self-esteem, while their fellows wrote those words on their bodies. Some of the phrases included "poor", "short" and "fat".
We're not sure how this part of the Task was scored, but we trust in Biggie's wisdom. After that, the Housemates were sent on their way with bars of Eva Soap to wash the negativity off their bodies and to extend the metaphor, a little bit.
Unfortunately, the announcement of the winner was delayed until later, so this is where we need to sign this article off. There will, however, be a follow-up. Watch this space.
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