SATURDAY!
Saturday, Steve and I got up at about 2:00 am and got ready to drive down to Birmingham. Why in the world would we want to do that, you say? Well, for some insane reason, I had gotten the urge to audition for none other than AMERICAN IDOL! The rules online said that you had to register up to two days before the actual audition, so we decided to get ahead of the immense line that would be sure to form, and head on down there early.
I had found out some weeks ago that the auditions were going to be held in B'ham this year. Since I had always wanted to try out, but didn't have the time or the funds to go out to Atlanta and stand in line for a week, I figured that this would be the only shot I would have to do it before I got too old. I wasn't going to tell anyone my plans because I knew that everyone would get excited for me and be disappointed if I didn't make it. However, a man a church stopped me and asked if I was going to audition. I didn't want to lie to him, and I didn't have anything to knock him unconcious with so that I could run away without answering, so I told him my plans. It wasn't out of my mouth for a whole minute before more people knew, so I decided to just go on ahead and tell some of my friends. I think I also partly told them because I was afraid I was going to chicken out, and I figured that the more people who knew, the more obligated I would be to go through with it! : )
So anyway, Steve and I get up in the dark and drove the not-so-long drive south. The website for the auditions said that no one would be allowed to camp out, or even get in line before 6:00 am. Yeah, right. We got there a little before 5:00 am, thinking we could just sit in the car until it was time to line up, but there were already about a thousand people in line ahead of us! So we ran over and joined the already packed line of folks waiting to get inside to register. We stood in that line for HOURS. Apparently they didn't care when you lined up, but they weren't going to let anyone in to register until they absolutely had to. We were shoulder to shoulder, packed like the proverbial sardines, everyone breathing the same air. You know how claustrophobic I am, right? At one point before we started moving, I got stuck in the very center of the crowd beside some chick who had BATHED in some kind of reeky perfume that was making me nauseated. I fanned myself with my registration form, and I just barely escaped screaming and clawing my way through the crowd to get back to the car, but I was determined not to throw up or leave my spot. Although we were more than a thousand people behind the front of the line, we were still closer to the front than most people who were there.
At about 7:30 or so we finally started moving. Ever 15 minutes or so the line (or should I say mob, it wasn't exactly orderly) would move up about 20 feet before we would start up again. Steve and I met some nice people in line and talked to them a bit. You pretty much did have to make friends of the people around you, because you were all touching and sharing auras. Getting into a fight or argument in that crowd would have been disasterous! We finally got inside the lobby of the BJCC arena (blessed air conditioning) and registered. It took all of 3 minutes to show my I.D. and for Steve and I to get our armbands and tickets, which signified the fact that we had, indeed, stood in line long enough to warrent getting back in on Monday. My armband was gray because I would be auditioning, Steve's was orange signifying he was only there for moral support. The armbands were similar to the kind you get for going to a carnival or concert, only they were made of flimsy paper. We were instructed NOT to get them wet, NOT to tear them, and NOT damage or alter them in any way because if you didn't have it on on Monday, or if they even looked like they had been tampered with, you'd have to register all over again instead of getting into the audition line first thing. They were PAPER! Regular paper! Geez!
I felt so bad for Steve having to stand in that crowd for so long because he hates crowds as much as I do, but he was actually almost more excited that I was! We got out of there by about 8:45 am, which really wasn't that bad. We figured that we would be there until evening at least, but registration apparently was the fastest thing about the whole process. On the way home we stopped for breakfast and to buy some SaranWrap so that we could basically shrink wrap our bracelets for the weekend. It wasn't easy, but we finally got it done. Just a word to the wise, wearing Saran Wrap on your wrist all weekend is HOT!!!!!!!!!!! Not to mention, it was almost impossible to do anything without getting the stupid thing caught on stuff. Arrrrrgh. I even had to sleep in a carpel tunnel wrist brace so that I didn't rip it off in the middle of the night. Taking a shower was hard because I couldn't get my right arm wet. All in all, it was a load of fun! : )
Later that evening a few of our friends came over to have dinner and play "Scene It" trivia. The game has a DVD you have to watch to answer some of the questions. Steve was the DVD Master! He was the only one who could have possibly been the DVD Master because he has done something so complicated with the entertainment system that I don't know how to play DVDs anymore. We don't have a DVD player, we have an X-Box. We no longer have a remote control, we have the bridge of the Starship Enterprise with joysticks. He swears that it will be easier one of these days, but I'm not so sure. At any rate, He was the DVD master and the game was FUN! My team won because the game deciding question was to name the actor who played these characters: Bob Falfa, Jack Ryan, and Indiana Jones. Um, hello?! LOL! Afterwards we put the DVD on "Party Play" and just answered question after question. Anthony and I were neck-on-neck on the questions where the DVD gave the titles of movies in different words and we had to guess the real titles (ex. The Celestial Battles = Star Wars), but I pulled ahead in the last round. Anthony could do the fill in the blanks better than anyone, and Shannon figured out the movies from the movie stills. Then to bed.
SUNDAY!
Sunday was a regular day with Church and my parent's house for lunch. We were so tired, though. It's been a long time since I've gone without sleep on purpose! We came home right after church at night with the plans to go right to bed, but we were wired. We ended up staying up fairly late and watching the William Shatner Roast on Comedy Central. Shatner rules. That's pretty much all I can say! : ) We finally did fall asleep, which was good because the next day promised to be really, FREAKING long.
1 comment:
You will never regret going for a dream.
Do you think you will try again?
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