Adventures of an AFWingMom: I Was Benched

The Price Is Right Adventure continues...

The pages handed out these little cards that we needed to fill out in case we were called to be a contestant. You had to fill out your legal name, social security number and address I think.

You'll be asked to prove your eligibility for the show and to do this, you'll need two pieces of identification. We brought our driver's license and we had to bring something with our social security number on it. Gina had brought her Social Security card and an insurance card and the rest of us just brought our licenses. If you forget to bring something that shows your social security number you can still be called as a contestant. You will just have to produce proof of it within thirty days of the taping.

Seattle Bob continued to entertain everyone and there was a lot of chatting, laughing and bonding. Our energy levels were starting to drop just a bit and then the pages began the name tag process. We ALL got very excited again and eagerly awaited our turn.

You had to put your legal first name on the name tag and you could not write it yourself. I asked the page to put a heart on mine but she said that she could only write the name in all caps. The pages also tell you to attach your large contestant number to the bottom of the name tag. Try to barely attach the number so it stays put, but won't be crazy hard to take off because eventually you remove it.

On the row behind us sat Carlos and his wife Chanda. You pronounce her name like panda but with a 'ch'. At least that's what she told us.

Carlos was in the Navy and in his white dress uniform. We told him he was a shoe-in to get on contestants row because they like military people. The page had worked his way to Carlos. He jokingly said, "Are you from the Love Boat?" and Carlos says, "Yes, I'm Isaac, you know, the bartender." The page starts to write ISAAC on the nametag. Then Carlos says, "No, my name is Carlos! I was just playing along with your joke!" Joseph, the page, says, "Well I am not familiar with the show." We were thinking, then why did you try and make a joke about it? Sheesh.

Again we sat for forever on the benches. Finally a little after 12:00p.m. they started taking groups of people around the corner. About this time a large group of people showed up and they were let in first. Unfortunately for Carlos they were a large group from the Navy. We didn't think Carlos was going to get called. More than likely it would be someone from that group. Darn it!

So we were thinking to ourselves, YES!! This is it!! At 12:40p.m. we were the next row to move and we were so excited as we rounded the corner to see.....more benches. Are you kidding me? This time though, we were waiting to be interviewed! The excitement was building as we saw the rows before us being interviewed.

The interview process began with groups of 10-12 people standing up in front of a guy that was talking to them. There was a girl in a directors chair taking notes and every so often whispering to the guy. We had watched the groups in front of us being interviewed so we were kind of seeing what to expect.

It was a little nerve wracking especially when it was our turn to be up there. We were sitting on benches, waiting and hoping. At this point in time, while trying to function on little or now sleep after being awake for nearly 33 hours, our primary goal was to just get inside the studio. But there was still that glimmer of hope that we would be chosen as a contestant.

Our brief "interview" consisted of the guy saying our names, asking where we were from and what we did for a living. Even if you did practice saying something witty or unusual that would make you stand out, the reality of it all is you have very little time to impress the interviewer or clipboard girl.

We forgot to mention that it was our parent's 40th anniversary, or that we were road trip junkies, or that we LOVE Plinko, or that....well, you get the idea. One of the Boston Boys, this time Jared I think or maybe it was Justin, did tell the interviewer that he wanted to be a meteorologist and study the flight patterns of the African Swallow. Not sure if that was made up or not but we thought it was funny.

After the interview process our energy levels took a huge jump because after we were done we were headed to the studio! WOOT!! WOOT!! As we turned the corner we heard cheers! This was it! Our moment we had been waiting for! We entered the canopied area and saw...

More benches. That's right. More waiting on more benches. ::sigh:: We tried to look on the bright side. We were that much closer to getting inside the studio so we resigned ourselves to waiting a bit longer.

I guess it was actually our lucky day because we were sitting right in front of the men's restroom. As we were waiting this man starts to walk out and then instead of turning the corner to come out, walks into the wall. We were wondering what he was doing. We realized that he thought it was a good idea to fix his zipper right there in front of us. Nice. Oh how special is that? If there is one memory we would want to forget, I'd say it would be that one.

Finally, at 2:00p.m. we were headed inside the studio. FINALLY!! We stayed together as a group, Stacy and Mark, the Boston Boys, our Mom and Dad, Gina and me. This was it folks!! We were going inside!!