Destinos

As one walks about this lovely city, there's only so much you can do to entertain yourself. You can people-watch, you can contemplate architecture, you can completely zone out and then surprise yourself when you arrive at your destination (think along the lines of Old School's Frank during the debate scene- I do this while walking AND while driving- probably not good), or you can just leave your mind to its own devices. I think I simultaneously occupy myself with all of the above. This afternoon, I was on my 20-minute trek back from class with Chucky Candle when a random memory popped into this pretty little head of mine. It is Spanish-related and pretty entertaining, if I manage to tell it as I remember. East Lyme, Connecticut. Senior year of high school. Second semester.

Maureen Epps, she of the bleach-blonde hair, the hot pink fingernails (which she once actually painted IN class..), and the gargantuan son (I believe we all remember the infamous 'Patrick'), needed to assign a project for her AP Spanish class. By this point, being it the end of second semester, we had all been accepted to our respective colleges, paid the deposits, and therefore didn't have to worry about grades anymore- ie we didn't give a shit. To change things up, for our project we had to do some sort of skit, video-tape it, and then show it to the class. Some people re-enacted scenes from current tv shows, translating them into Spanish. (I remember Priscilla Lloyd played Joey Potter in an endearing adaptation of Dawson's Creek.) Meghan Healy, Stephanie Loomis, and I were a group... and we decided to do a take-off of Destinos.

Destinos, for anyone who doesn't know, is an educational soap opera targetted at American High School kids. There's a plot, but then it's sometimes interrupted by little educational spots. It's pretty lame- but it's entertaining to make fun of it. The exhilarating, edge-of-your-seat plot of the countless episodes (42, I believe) of Destinos focuses on a woman named Raquel, a shoulder-pad-clad, scrunchie-wearing lawyer, whose old and dying client (don Fernando, I believe was his name- 42 episodes and two years of him gasping his last breaths) wants her to track down his wife. He had thought that the wife had died years and years ago during the war in Spain, but then he received a note that suggested otherwise. Anyways. So Raquel goes trekking around the Spanish-speaking world following leads and what not. During her travels, she meets that stud Arturo and a romance ensues. And what a romance it was- I think the most amorous thing they did (which seemed highly unlikely to our 18 year old hormone-driven selves) was make pizzas together, using vegetables to give the pizzas smiley faces. My God, anything more and it'd have to be classified as pornography!

I don't remember exactly what our plot ended up being. The video opens up with Raquel (Meghan Healy) at her computer... singing Don't Cry for Me Argentina... who then receives an anonymous phone call by a shadowy figure (that'd be me- I'm so shady, yo) saying that she'd better keep tabs on her boyfriend's activities (dun dun dunnnnnn...) Raquel, upset and worried that she was about to lose her "pizza pal" (that's what the kids are calling it these days..), proceeds to stalk Arturo. Unfortunately, since we were three girls, we didn't have anyone to play Arturo. As if by fate, Kati Green had a blow up doll named Mr. Stud that she was so kind as to let us borrow. All I can say is that at one point Raquel is in Macy's trying on the most hideous clothes we could find in the 'Macy-Woman' section (I was the store clerk at this point-- I suggested that Raquel put in more shoulder-pads). She then spots Arturo and a mystery woman in the lingerie section of the store picking out sexy nighties and the plot thickens! Well you know what this means. Yes, we walked through our local mall, and then through the Macy's lingerie section with a life-sized blow-up doll. A blow-up doll named Mr. Stud wearing nothing but a black speedo. At one point a store employee walked by us as we're filming, stopped in his tracks, shook his head and said 'I don't even want to know..' before moving along.

In the end, it turns out it's just Arturo's sister who's helping him plan a romantic weekend for him and Raquel. It also turns out that the 'shadowy' character from the beginning has a homosexual crush on Arturo and was making the phone calls to Raquel trying to break them up. SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

And that's the memory that popped into my head this afternoon. And Stephanie, Meghan... if you read this and still have the video... I want it!