Caray, Caray!

The veeedeocleeep that Luigi is going to get stuck shooting with video instead of 35mm is for an artist named Benny Ibarra. Luigi has shot some test footage with Magali, the woman Fernando picked up at the cocktail party, and when he shows it to the suits from Benny’s record company they are in love. Luigi preens and soaks in the praise. Marcia tells Fernando that the record company has even agreed to give them a cut of some CD sales, assuming Benny’s sales go up after the release of the video. Also, every female within 10 miles fights the urge to throw their legs open with Benny in the building. Like if Tom Jones visited where YOU work. Tom Jones looks like Bob the neighbor from “That 70’s Show” but apparently is second only to Wilt Chamberlain for the all-time scoring record. But I digress.

Lety tells Fernando that Bat-guy is still asking her where to deposit her kickback. Fernando is very excited, he has been waiting for the subject to come up again. He calls Bat-guy’s hot boss on the phone and tells her “My assistant says that your guy there offered her a bribe.” Based on his half of the conversation that we hear, she is shocked I tell you SHOCKED to hear that such a thing is happening right under her nose. SHOCKED. Fernando doesn’t believe it either. He tells her, “here’s what you’re going to do. Take the money you were going to give her, and give it to Conceptos. Just do it, trust me, you don’t want to fight with me about this.” Then he smiles, she has agreed. So there’s a little cash in his pocket. Meanwhile, Lety is still getting paid something like 50 pesos per hour even though she’s acting CFO/VP. I actually paused the recording out of frustration after this scene. I looked at my wife and she was obviously thinking the same thing as me. Lety is the absolutely DUMBEST smart person in the entire country of Mexico. Her father might lose his job, her mother appears to be on some kind of happy pills, her best friend is the Mexican version of Squiggy (from Laverne & Shirley), the ’89 LeBaron loan payments are enough to put the family into bankruptcy apparently, and she WON’T ASK FOR A DAMN RAISE. I believe there was even a cuss word or two in the ensuing conversation. We really got lathered up about that. Remember, at least a month of shows has gone by since she took on additional duties. What a complete wuss. Boo, Lety, booo.

So of course you know what happens next. As soon as I start the tape again……

Omar tells Fernando, basically, “Fernando, you idiot, you keep giving her all this stuff to do and keep drawing her tighter into your little web and you’re still paying her like she’s an intern.” Fernando looks stunned. Gosh golly gee Omar it never crossed my mind. I’m so great and the president of a company but I can’t even think to keep my own assistant paid right. So he calls Lety in after Omar leaves and tells her he’s giving her a big raise, I think he said 800 Pesos. That must be per week. She says “800 Pesos?” like he said 10 Million Dollars. Yeah and I’ll let you keep my pocket change too. Fernando thinks she isn’t satisfied with that, so he bumps it up to 900. She is about to say “900 Pesos?” and Fernando, like you and me, sees that this could go on all night. He says yeah 900 Pesos, thank you, good night, I’ll be here all week. This is followed by the typical Lety swooning, dreaming, imagining kissies, etc.

Luigi has the scenery all drawn up on boards in his office. However, today is another one of those days where Paula Maria’s son got kicked out of school again or something and Lola’s ex-husband dropped her kids off too. So, after some wandering around, the kids end up in Luigi’s office. They see the pictures and decide to color them in, not knowing what they are. Lola’s young son has a dinosaur stamp, a stamp like you press on an inkpad and then on paper. He stamps little dinosaurs all over everything. Then we see Luigi instructing some painters to get the boards from his office and make sure the scenery matches his drawings. You see what’s going to happen here right? Later Luigi comes back and finds his veedeo scenery painted with dinosaurs! It’s pretty funny, mostly to see his super-gay reaction. This guy makes Jack McFarland from Will & Grace look like Sam Malone from Cheers he’s so gay. Fernando shows up, has an equally comical reaction, then they scream at the painters, then the kids, then the painters start working to fix it all up again. The whole thing was funny but a bit pointless.

More stuff happens with the shadow company. Fernando tells the plan to Lety, she’s surprised about the whole thing but of course she’ll do it, she’d take bamboo slivers under her nails for Fernando. They do some paperwork. This whole storyline is kind of a bore, though it does give a reason to keep Tomas and RoboPapa involved in the story later on rather than just for their usual shticks. Fernando tells Lety, about as many times as Omar told Paula Maria to keep their tryst quiet, that she can’t tell anyone about the shadow company. “Yeah, it’s totally legit, oh yeah totally, but uh you can’t tell anyone or I’ll have you disappear. Heh. It’s all legit though, really.”

Marcia the Unblinking Eye complains to Fernando’s mother some more about Fernando and how much influence Lety has on him. Lety is working on cutting costs and Fernando is backing it up 100%. Of course cutting costs is a good idea when you are losing money, but since it was Lety’s idea Marcia hates it.

For the 10th time of 100 times, Luigi asks Fernando where his new camera is. “heh it’s on the way really Luigi totally I was just checking on it this morning, really.” Fernando’s job has turned into walking around the building lying to people. And scoping out models. That’s about it.

Fernando then tells Lopez the creepy nasty HR guy to clean out Olarte’s old office, he’s moving Lety in there. Then he tells Lety, who starts to cry. He can’t believe it. She won’t go. He says don’t you want a window or something? Nope. She gives him some crap about wanting to be close to do all their business and he buys it. What a rube. He says fine, whatever you want. She goes into her office for the whole dreamy swoony thing she does. I know the first two notes of the music for when she does this, so I can roll my eyes about it before she even gets started now. Good times.

Lety brings Tomas in on her new shadow company. Fernando moved 100,000 Pesos into that company’s account, Lety wants Tomas to invest it for her. In direct violation of Fernando’s order to NOT TELL ANYBODY. Really, he couldn’t have been more clear. Here’s what Lety did: “uh huh, don’t tell anyone. Got it. Hey Tomas check this out…..” Nice work Lety. You’ll never get to be Mrs. Fernando if you do stuff like that. She ends up selling him 1% of the company, so he can work as an owner and not just an employee. To have rights with the money or something like that.

It’s the morning of the big Benny Ibarra veeedeo shoot and nobody has arrived in the office yet. Fernando is beside himself. As people arrive one by one, he bites their heads off one at a time. Finally everyone is there and there’s no one left to yell at.

Omar tells Fernando that Luigi is going to flip when he finds out there is no 35mm camera coming, just a new video camera. No duh Omar, good thing we pay you so much. Advice like that is priceless. Aren’t there some ladies working somewhere that you should be giving the constipation face to?

Tomas immediately lets his new status go to his head and he buys some business cards. He’s Donaldo Trump. Lety goes to work and continues to tell Fernando that she hasn’t told anyone about the company.

Saimon is having a little fun with the dancers from the video. As the world’s only messenger who wears a suit, he gets to pull his “I’m an executive” routine and starts teaching them to dance. He’s having a grand old time until he doesn’t notice Fernando standing right behind him trying to do the General Zod from Superman II thing with his eyes into the back of Saimon’s head. One more notch in the belt for Fernando, he might actually get to yell at every single person in the company today.

Fernando tells Lety that he’s going to L.A. tomorrow and that he’s leaving HER in charge of the company while he’s gone! Boy oh boy wait until the Unblinking Eye and Jessica Rabbit find out about THAT.

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