Protégé, meanwhile, is hanging out in Chinatown. ["Not really. I mean, if I'm right -- to me it looked like they're at Pearl River Mart. I think the neighbourhood it's in is considered to be SoHo, not Chinatown, and its stock is not really that cheap -- not wholesale cheap, certainly, and it's a regular store, so you wouldn't even be able to dicker over the prices there." -- Wing Chun] Assorama and Kwame are trying on a whole series of hats, which...just, no. No cheap Chinatown hats. My favorite part is where Kwame says to Assorama, "Don't...don't get that one that's on your head. That one doesn't look right." Heh.

Kristi gets on the Space Communicator with Heidi. Kristi explains in an interview that the folks who were back at the suite were really pressing them to come up with a product one way or another. Kristi offers the idea of some "beautiful umbrellas" she found. They're not really umbrellas; they're parasols, in that they're certainly not for rain avoidance. In fact, they're not even really for sun avoidance. They're really for decoration, I think. Kristi says they can get the umbrellas for $1.25 each, which appears to me to be a reasonable facsimile of what they're worth. ["See? Not wholesale-y." -- Wing Chun] Assorama says in an interview that in choosing the product, Kristi relied on the opinion of the people at home, rather than the ones with her, which Assorama clearly sees as a bad move. It seems to be a particularly bad move, because Kristi is misleading the people back at the suite about what it is she's proposing. Specifically, Troy asks Kristi whether these things are "practical," and despite the fact that they appear to be made of paper, Kristi weakly says that they are. This in spite of the fact that opened fully, the "umbrella" is about eighteen inches across, I'd say. It's also got a little short handle...I mean, it's just not an umbrella. It's not. When Troy mentions that it will be raining tomorrow and that umbrellas would be great, Kristi tries to say that she thinks it would at least keep the rain off her head somewhat, and Kwame tries to protest, telling her that isn't what the things are for, obviously. What's funny to me is...why didn't they sell umbrellas? I mean, if it's going to rain...wouldn't that have been a good thing to pick up on? Put these things down, and go find some actual umbrellas, right? Sigh. Kristi insists that the parasols are "a quality product," so she appears to be set on the parasol notion. Kwame interviews that Kristi, in trying to lead by consensus, was "a little bit helter-skelter." Oddly, that doesn't seem to be the case at all here -- the case here seems to be that she's pushing too hard and not listening to the team, rather than being too mushy, although I'll agree that was how they got to this point in the first place. Although nobody else has suggested anything particularly brilliant, either, so...they might want to ease up on the judgment. Back in the Chinatown shop, Kristi says she thinks they could sell the parasols for five bucks very easily. At a flea market? Feh. They relay to Troy that they're "making an executive decision" and going with the parasols. Troy, who still thinks they're umbrellas, tells them he thinks it's a great idea. But then, he also got pretty revved up about dirt.