The anti-climactic climax

Ok, Ok... one more chapter - and then it's lights out.
(pic courtesy of T-Ho...)

So we last left our intreped game show contestant wanna-bes at the brink of disaster. We had missed our time slot - thanks to Shawn's hyperactive bladder and were now hoping that somehow - a group would not show up for the next hours auditions. Which, by the way, was the last hour of the night. They were shutting down after that.

So we had one shot. One shot to come in and show off our brilliance.

Now granted. If you wanted to audtion, you had to fill in an online form. Then, if you were accepted, you had to fill in a three page questionaire - for each person on your team. Then you had to be picked from all the applicants to come to an audition. And give up part of your Saturday. And go to Chicago - which was the only place in the mid-west that they were stopping by.

If you had gone through all this trouble to do all of these things - what is the likelyhood that you would miss your audtion?

Hmmm.

We left and walked around the block a few times - cursing Shawn and our luck. We couldn't believe that two minutes doomed us the way that it did. But then again - at least we didn't pay $400 to fly out here for this humiliation...

We arrive back at the hotel and decide to wait outside the room. The helpful girls actually show us to a holding room next door to where the audtions are being held. We go in there, cursing our luck - but excited to think that we still have a chance - because we are the only ones here.

Now here is where things get crazy.

During the next thirty minutes - people start to come in. One team. Two teams. Five teams. The room is starting to fill up. We make jokes to each other to cover the growing dread that we might not make it inside. We console ourselves that we are the only "camera ready" team in this hall of geeks...

And in the middle of the rising anxiety - Shawn gets a call from his wife. Shawn and his wife are famous for phone fights. A simple misunderstanding can lead to an evening of continual grief. Any married man can relate that the wrong word at the wrong time can cause infinite sadness for the rest of your life...

Well - as the room became more and more crowded - Shawn's wife called - wanting to know how we did - because our auditions should have been way over by now. But Shawn - not wanting to broadcast the fact that we missed our slot in a room full of competition - tried to be discrete and tell her that he would tell her about it later. But the more elusive he tried to be, the more she pressed - and soon -

Shawn was in the corner with his head burried in his hands - trying to dig his way out of a crapstorm.

In the mean time - Blair and I watch as the room fills with over 25 teams - we are now past 75 people in there. And remember - only 3 teams go FROM THE ENTIRE DAY - they have done over 10 sessions like this...

Our hopes and dreams slowly begin to diminish...

Suddenly - the girl appears and tells us to go into the audition room. Shawn extricates himself from his call - looking like he just got mule kicked in the groin. He weakly smiles - trying to assure us that he is OK.

We are in the corner of the room furthest from the door - and I try to get us to sneak in with the crowd so they can't stop us from at least getting in the room. There are so many people - we are sure that everyone is here and there is no slot for us. When we get to the door - the girl is talking to someone else and we walk right in...

WE MADE IT.

But in truth - our humiliation was far from over.

We sat at a table with the other 75 people and we were given an envelope that had the test in it. We were told there were 50 questions and we had 15 minutes to answer them. While we were nervous - we figured the worst part was over... but if you looked around the room and were searching for people that looked like trivia was their lives - you would have found a bunch of them there. These guys looked like this was the first time they had seen daylight in a long time.

For a brief shining second - we feel a glimmer of hope.

Till we see the test.

We open our envelopes - and remember - everyone on the team must pass. It turns out the test is 50 questions - not true and false - not multiple choice - not a mix of different things - it is all questions - with nothing but blanks for the answers. No help. No hints. Just questions and 50 blanks.

I look at the first question. What is the name of the character that Tom Clancy created that has been played by Alec Balwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck? Not a tough one - but for some reason - my mind goes blank. And I read the freaking books.

Ok. Just move on to the next one.

What is the name of Alf's home planet. Crap....

I move through the test - looking for some sort of respite from the onslaught of my ignorance. It gets worse before it gets better. What is the name of the bar frequented by the denizens of Three's Company? On Magnum P.I., what are the names of Robin Masters Dobermans? What is the name of the drummer in Hanson? What was the name of the wrestler Rocky fought in Rocky III played by Hulk Hogan?

Granted - there are a bunch that I could get with minimal work - and I finally remembered Jack Ryan. At one point - I decided to cheat and look at Shawn's test to see what planet Alf came from - but he wrote something so obviously a guess -something like IPLAK - that if I used that - they would know we were cheating...

In the end - I figured I was about 30-35 out of 50. Blair figure he was somewhere around 30ish... Shawn thought he did the best - until we started talking about answers... and then he said "whoops" a lot.

In the end - our collective ignorance brought us down. There were just three teams from our audition that went on to the interview round - and 22 that went home knowing that they actually had a semblance of a life.

All in all - it was a really interesting, fun and ultimately humiliating experience.

But at least I didn't have to pay $400 to fly there for it...