For those of you who don’t know – I recently auditioned to be on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? and this is my story of that adventure in my life.  This is the second part. (Here is the first part if you missed it.) I was going to do it all as one post, but it got quite long!

The Test!

As we enter the testing room we get a t-shirt and our test – being told to not open it.  We take our items and proceed to the next open seats and take our Scantron (wow that brings back memories from school) and the cardboard (they didn’t have desks/tables, so we had a piece of cardboard to use our writing surface) and sit down.  We listen to various instructions (put all items below your chair except the test, answer sheet, and pencil), etc.  Since we were at the front of the line we had to wait awhile until they got all the seats filled.  I estimated about 350-400 people in the room. During that time we chatting a little bit with those around us.  The WWTBAM people administering the test were great – very professional but yet kept things fun.  So although we did a lot of waiting, the time went quite fast because of the light and fun atmosphere.

Finally the room is full of potential Millionaire contestants and we start the actual testing process.  We start by listening to the instructions of what to put on the answer sheet (our name, testing session (#2), and test number).  We are told to make sure we remember our test numbers because that is how we will be told if we passed the test.  Chad was 198 and I was 41.  Two numbers I shall never forget.  We are told there are 30 questions and we have 10 minutes to answer them. After one final “any questions?” we are told to start.  No warning that we will be starting – just “You may start.”  That caught me a little off guard, but I successfully got my test out of the manilla envelope and got to work.  I went through and answered those I knew for sure right away and then went back to spend a little more time on those that required a bit of thought. I successfully stifled my chuckle when I got to the question about a Wendy’s sandwich whose name was inspired by Arnold Schwarzenegger (see previous part of this story about our stop for dinner at Wendy’s if you don’t get why I wanted to chuckle.) I get through all 30 questions, make sure I answered all questions, and then go back and start reviewing each question to make sure that the answer I had marked was my “final answer.”  I changed one after I gave it some more thought.  Then the time is over, we put our tests back in the envelope and pass in our Scantron forms (being properly straightened and putting them all in the same direction as they passed by me) and our tests.  They go off into the back to score them.

We are then told what to do if our number is called and they answered various questions – and no they can’t tell us what a passing score is.  We chat a bit about the test with those around us to see what we thought about various questions, etc.  Chad and I both feel we did quite well, but one never knows.  We discuss what we’ll do if one of us passes and the other doesn’t. They also talk about Chad and my story about how they followed us on Twitter the whole way and we look up and there is a TV camera on us as they are taping footage for various promos they are working on for the show. Then they come out with the list of numbers. At this point my nerves have kicked into high gear and am very anxious about listening for 198 and 41!

The Results!

They start reading the numbers and Chad and I are solely focused on hearing 198 and/or 41.  Number after number goes by with many being very close to ours, but not ours.  My heart and hopes rose and sank so many times as the list was read.  Then it got to the point of wondering if the number they just read would be the last one. Then the magical number of 198 was said and Chad was very happy. I was very happy for him too, but my happiness for him quickly got moved to the side of my mind as I realized I still needed to listen for 41. A few more numbers were read and then the magical #41 was said and I could finally be excited for both Chad and myself and a huge relief came over me.

We go over to the side of the room with the others whose numbers were called.  I can hardly speak or anything since I was so overcome with emotion.  The last time I remember feeling this happy/excited/blessed/in disbelief was when in 6th grade I took a math competition test at NMU and I knew how I had scored since we got to score our copy of the test ourselves after we took them, and was wondering why they hadn’t called me up yet because I was sure I couldn’t have scored so high, but alas I got 1st place in that competition and had a similar feeling, except after the Millionaire test I could walk at least.  Lots of people who passed got on their phones to call their loved ones (including Chad and myself) and tweeting and posting to Facebook about it. While we are waiting, the promotions people come over to talk to us about our trip and social media, etc.  Who knows where our faces will be used!

We then get further instructions about what to write on the back of our applications, and for those who didn’t have a filled out one with them, to fill out the application.  Luckily Chad and I followed the directions on the website and brought our filled out apps with us, so that saved us time.

The Interviews

Then Chad gets called up to the next set of tables and I continue to wait and a minute or two later I get called up and have my mug shot taken (with my name, date, and location in the picture). Then I sit down to chat with the same person who originally pulled us out of line in the morning.  I start talking with her answering the questions she is asking and then it dawns on me that this is part of the interview process and not just a friendly chat.  It didn’t phase me at all when I realized that since I would have done or said nothing different had I realized it was an official interview before I started.  After a few questions she has me sign a release and am told to wait for the video interview.

Next, I go behind the curtain for a video interview with one of the producers of the show (The same one that was interviewed on the news clip posted in part 1). He just asked a few more questions about who I am, what do I do, what I would do with the money, and other items that I mentioned on my application, including about my OCD – so I mentioned that I made sure the Scantrons were in order as they went by. A few minutes later the interview was done and I was asked to go talk to another person.

Stay tuned for Part 3 for what that next person wanted, how we got home, and what comes next!

For those of you who don’t know – I recently auditioned to be on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? and this is my story of that adventure in my life.  This is the first part. I was going to do it all as one post, but it got quite long!

Background

The journey actually began about a year ago when Chad Mosher, a friend and fellow game show junkie, went to New York to audition for WWTBAM and posted about his adventure on an about.com blog (Part 1 and Part 2).  This started my thoughts of, “Hey, I could do that”.  As I watched the past season of the show, I kept thinking about it and thought that if Chad goes to NY to audition again, I’ll go with him.  Well his plans to go to NY didn’t work out about the same time that WWTBAM announced the road auditions and the one in Chicago, and Chad and I both immediately said we would go and tried to get others to join us on our road trip.  No one else could make it with us, but the two of us went and was well worth it.

The Trip There

On Thursday, July 14, 2011, I got out of work at 2:30 p.m. and headed home and get everything packed up I needed to take and left for the Flint area to pick up Chad.  He was ready for me when I got there and we turned around and hit the road for Chicago.  Along the way we chatted, got to know each other a bit more, played some games of Millionaire on his iPod, and answered questions from Trivial Pursuit cards.

On the way there we decided it was time to stop for fuel for the car and fuel for us.  The Speedway we stopped at was in limbo land.  Standing at the gas station you could look one way and see “Welcome to Indiana” and the other way you saw “Welcome to Michigan” , so the only logical conclusion is that the station was between states!  We then went to Wendy’s for dinner and I had a chicken sandwich and Chad had a Baconator.

We continued on our way navigating the freeways of Chicago and paying tolls as needed and being amused by the fact you can pay a 80 cent toll on a credit card (we didn’t, but we could have). My Google Nav also took us a strange way and there were detour signs, and I didn’t think I needed to follow the signs and my GPS, but since I didn’t know for sure, I just followed it and we got to the hotel somehow, although I’m still not sure exactly how we did.  Who am I to question Google Nav and my Droid X?

We got to the hotel about 9:30 (CDT), got checked in with no problems and got settled in our room.  We watched some TV, checked email and Facebook, and settled in for the night and to rest up for the big day.

Morning of the Audition

Our alarm went off at 6:00 a.m. and we were both already partially up since neither of us slept all that well for some reason.  We got ready enough to go down and have some breakfast, where we didn’t eat too much since I was a bit nervous and the waffle maker destroyed Chad’s waffle!  We went back to our room to finish getting ready for the day and pack up all of our stuff.  While we were getting ready we saw a story on the local news about the audition process and were a little nervous about how many people were in line already, but figured we wouldn’t have any problems.  (We also say a story on the Exxxotica Expo and thought that was very strange to have on for the 6:00 morning news, but found it “interesting” at least.) After we were ready we headed out to go to the auditions about 7:30 a.m.

Getting to and Getting into the Auditions

Driving to the audition Chad made sure I knew what to expect, some tips for what to do and not do, and answering any other questions I had.  We got to the audition location (The Arlington Park Racetrack) and saw the line of people from which we determined it wasn’t too bad and should be in the next group to audition or at the worst the one after that.  We finally found a place to park and joined the line of Millionaire hopefuls. We are standing in line chatting, sharing bits of random trivia that we know (you never know what will be on the test!), and then I hear something about @ChadMosher in the distance.  I listen again and sure enough there is a WWTBAM person asking if there is an @ChadMosher in line, and so I’m pulling Chad to the side of the line and pointing him out.  He is wondering what I’m doing since he said to not draw much attention to ourselves and especially him having been on other game shows before.

The production person comes over to us and tells Chad that they have been following our adventures on Twitter the whole way and he was being brought up to the front of the line, so Chad heads up and I’m still in line and we are both thinking “But wait – we are together”, well before Chad or I could say or do anything she also asked for @ChadMosher’s friend, @cmumathwhiz and thus I got to go up as well. We are both confused and amazed at the same time, finding it a bit surreal that the show production/audition staff were following our adventures on Twitter and were being brought up in line because of that.  The production people told the others in line if they started tweeting pictures of them in line they had a chance to be brought up front as well.  We are brought to the front of the line we were in and we started to stop but they told us to keep coming and then we see another line so we get to the front of that line and they start going into the building, so we go in and I finally think “OK, we are going to be put in this line so we’ll be sure to get into the next session”, but nope – we get brought to the very front of the line – in front of everyone else waiting, all because of a few silly tweets we did! A few others got to the front of the line because of tweets and some because of a contest WGN did.

Once at the front of the line we got a WWTBAM magnet and pencil. We then waited and chatted with those around us talking about a wide variety of items including what to expect on the test, crocheting/knitting (one lady was knitting in line), theatre, Mackinac Island (and correcting him on the pronunciation) We then get lead from the line up some escalators, across another room, up another escalator to the testing room.