MONDO EXTRAS

Mango walks Moronica to her car, telling her that he teaches elementary school. "What about you?" he asks. "I'm in the FBI. I mean, I work in a photo lab," Moronica replies. Mango quotes Keats and talks about photography and basically charms the pants off Moronica before inviting her out again. She can't go, she tells him, because she has to attend an open house at the gallery. He jumps at the chance to attend said open house. Moronica stammers. "I'm there," Mango tells her. He's all intense and salsa-riffic. "Goodnight," he tells her. "Don't forget to breathe." Moronica looks stunned and thoughtful as her lusty if somewhat incomprehensible partner scampers off through the night.

PhotoFest Open House. Moronica and her flowery halter-top dress greet her mother rather unenthusiastically. Mom notices that Moronica isn't wearing her engagement ring, but doesn't say anything. She just looks gigantically disapproving. She looks even more dour when she sees Moronica run off to greet Mango and Goatee.

Elsewhere at the Open House, Tramp #1 mercilessly hits on Mango. Eventually Moronica saves him, taking him upstairs to see her photographs. Moronica's mother watches Mango and Moronica scamper upstairs and makes an appalled face, as though Moronica had ripped off her dress and danced through the gallery, pouring red wine over her naked body and yodeling.

Upstairs, Mango sits on Moronica's desk and looks at her photos. "It is just as I thought! You're good!" he exclaims. Moronica opens the lower desk drawer to look for more of her work, and finds her ring, sitting there at the bottom. As Moronica gathers flies with her gaping mouth and stares, Mango unearths the pictures Moronica took of him dancing alone. He makes a shocked face. She looks up and apologizes. "I. See," Mango says stiffly. Moronica stammers that she didn't mean to offend him. "No, you didn't," Mango spits in an offended tone, and then runs away. What? Does he think she...I don't even know what he was thinking. Has the salsa perhaps affected his cognitive reasoning?

Later, Moronica drives her mother home; Mom thanks her by regaling her with a supposedly instructive story about a passionate affair Mom had with a "nice Jewish boy" before she meet Moronica's father. Neither set of parents was happy about the relationship, she says. "After time, I began to see, and so did he," Mom finishes vaguely. Moronica's all, what are you talking about? Her mom is all, nothing. Man, these people are uptight. Seriously, is it still that big a deal to date outside your absolutely exact ethnic background? Especially somewhere as diverse as Houston, where this flick allegedly takes place? In the year 2001? Because that's sad. And let's not even address the fact that Moronica isn't even dating Mango! She's just showing him pictures and letting him put her hand on his junk!