So I barely remember Angie returning to the room before I was sound asleep. Poor Angie now had to contend with the girls next door trying their best to whisper and not giggle and with me snoring away in the bed next to her. I don't know if she slept that night but the three hours I got to sleep were rock solid. I just remember waking up to a once again disheveled Angie frantically digging through her bag in the dark. If you know me at all I am not a morning person so in the only voice I could manage to squeeze out I told her she could turn on the light. Angie threw her bag onto the bed and with eyes as big as watermelons and her hair wrapped in a towel she told me she had forgotten her make-up. A blog cannot do justice to the panic and emotion that was in her voice as she tells me she needs to borrow mine. Again, if you know me at all you know I DON'T WEAR MAKE UP so what little make-up I brought is not the make-up Angie is use to leaving the house with. I stumbled out of bed with crusty eyes to find my make-up for her, thinking to myself "this is not good...I need her to calm down!" I turned around in time to see her find her make-up bag and I don't know if I vocalized to her that I needed her to calm down but I certainly thought it again as I walked into the bathroom and closed the door. If you know Angie and I this is a total role reversal we are having at the time...I'm the feeler, she's the thinker...I get wound up, she's cool, calm and collected. Part of me just wants to enjoy that she is beside herself but all I can do is try to not get into a panic myself. We successfully get dressed and get our bags packed and leave the hotel on time. IRONY of the day...we spin through the drive thru at McDonalds for breakfast on our way to the casting call for the Biggest Loser, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.
AND THE REAL ADVENTURES BEGIN...
We try to pull into a pay to park lot and a non-American parking attendant looks less than thrilled to see us and asked if we are here for "that TV show"...after looking at each other and clearly being offended that he assumed we were here for the "fatty show" he told us that we needed to go park somewhere else. Now I am starting to get a little panicked because we wanted to be in the line at 7:00am and every overweight person we see walking toward the Riverwalk Mall is one more person who is going to be ahead of us in line. Have I mentioned I'm a little competitive? We finally get parked and head towards the mall with our bags, our chairs and a cooler...time to tailgate. The doors for the casting call didn't open until 10:00am and we didn't know how long we would be waiting so we came prepared. Despite our parking set back we managed to still be in line early enough to be within the barricades and be one of the first 225 in line. Yay us! I wish I had gotten a picture of the ladies who were first in line who had slept outside all night. They looked like you know what and had to have frozen their big butts off. Getting up at 4:00am and being there by 7:00am was plenty for Angie and I. So now that we are here and not going anywhere for a while we might as well make friends, right?
If you read my previous post you know that I said every coonass in Louisiana came out for this casting call and I wasn't lying. There were five women in front of us from Thibodeaux, Louisiana who looked like they rolled out of bed to come. None of them had an application and didn't even know there was an application for the show that they needed to bring with them. All of them were chain smoking in the line...Lord help us all. They certainly kept us entertained. I was highly amused by all the people giving each other advise on weight loss as though they had been successful, building alliances as though they were already on the show...just hilarious. Angie and I just sat in our chairs and took it all in, what else could you do? At one point I offered my chair to a lady who was having back spasms. At first she declined and when I insisted she made sure she wasn't going to break my chair because of her size. At that point I just felt sorry for her and realized that I wasn't as bad off as I thought. After about 30 minutes she stood up to give me my chair back and I noticed that there was a butt sweat crease down the middle of my canvas chair and I had the hardest time keeping my composure. The best part was that it was rather chilly that morning so there was no reason for there to be sweat in my chair. Again, Angie and I just laughed and took it all in. If you know Angie at all you know she was incredibly grossed out by the butt sweat incident and I thought it was hilarious! Needless to say I waited a few moments to let the chair air out before I sat down because I didn't want a sweat line on my khakis.
Time for some pics... here is Angie looking all sassy that morning in line and our chair friend.
Not long after the chair incident our new friend said she was going to find a bathroom and asked if either of us needed to go. I walked with her to a hotel just past the mall to go the bathroom and had yet another fun encounter when someone asked us where the line was for the Biggest Loser. The friend I was with got offended and looked at me and said "do we look like we are here for the Biggest Loser" and I just chuckled and said "yay girl we do!" The walk to the bathroom wasn't that far from where the line was but my new friend wanted to try to find a shortcut back to the line and I begin to have those prideful thoughts of "has she seen the show? If she can't walk this far to the bathroom she can't make it on the show." I've also failed to mention that this friend is there with her sweet supportive and skinny boyfriend (how does this happen?). We got back to the line and Angie decided she was going to go to the bathroom now that we were back. Enter one of the highlights of my day...our friend says to Angie, "can I sit in your chair while you're gone?" I had just come back from the bathroom and I still almost wet myself!
Fast forward...
So around 9:30am members of the NBC crew started mingling in the crowd and handing out a one page front and back application. This application was just a mini version of questions that had been asked on the lengthy applications so it was easy to fill out for those of us who had come prepared. However, the ladies in front of us from Thibodeaux were quite humorous. For example one of the questions simply said..food is..and we heard them read the question and one of them just yelled...GOOD! Among other things on the application were questions about your height and weight, obviously because this is a weight loss show. One of the ladies said she had no idea how much she weighed because she hadn't been on a scale in years. Another chimed in and said she had been on a scale but her weight didn't register. Angie looked at me and said "praise Him...I may not like what my scale says but at least it still registers!" Amen!! Now curiosity was killing this fat cat to know what these ladies had put down on their application for their weight. So that you get the full scope of this story let me first show you a picture of one of our friends from Thibodeaux....
This is the friend who said she didn't know how much she weighed because she hadn't been on a scale in years. At some point in the line she was leaned over the rail with her application in hand and I saw that she put on her form that she was 5'2 inches and weighed 250lbs. My jaw just dropped and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I honestly was heartbroken for her because she probably thinks that she weighs 250lbs. Here is where I have to be brutally honest...I weigh 289lbs and this lady was twice my size. If she was cast on the show she would be crushed to get on those scales and find out how much she truly weighed. Angie and I were blown away and I was a little offended, to be honest.
10:00am rolls around and the casting directors make their appearance...and now I am a little nervous. Our chair friend begins to survey the crowd to see who she thinks is "camera worthy" and begins to talk to Angie and I as though we have all three made it on the show and said she thought we would all three be great roommates. Our seemingly normal, yet sweaty friend just moved into the weird category. The line began to move as they started taking groups of 15 people in for group interviews. Every time the line moved my stomach got a little more unsettled but I got a little more determined that this was our destiny...to answer Jillian's question..YES, Angie and I have what it takes to be the next Biggest Losers!!
We're finally to the front of the line with only one pair in front of us...our "250lb" friend from Thibodeaux and her partner. The next time the little cutie from NBC appears it is game on. Angie and I interviewed each other all the way to New Orleans the night before so we were ready for whatever question they threw at us. We knew the way the interviews were done was that we would be in a group of 15 and that the questions would be asked to the whole group and that you just had to jump in and answer. We knew we didn't want to come across as abrasive or talk too much but we definitely wanted to make sure that we got to answer a question. So the NBC cutie appeared and our time had arrived. Our Thibodeaux friend had a meltdown at the door and started crying uncontrollably and saying she didn't know if she could do it. I just looked at Angie and chuckled to myself as I thought.."are you serious? It's an interview lady...we aren't loading the bus right now to go to the ranch!" Angie and I both made eye contact and then stepped to the sides of her and looked at the NBC cutie as if to say non-verbally "we're ready if she's not!" She finally pulled herself together and the journey through the mall to where the interviews were being conducted began. Who knew that the 15 that started this journey would not end the journey at the other end of the mall. Slowly our Thibodeaux friend that was at the front of the line was now at the end of the line....then sitting on a bench asking the NBC cutie to stop for a moment. She couldn't breathe and couldn't go any further and then there was the awkward conversation where the NBC guy told her that we had to keep going. We left our Thibodeaux friend behind...this was war but she wasn't a teammate so leaving a man behind was the only option. Brutal, huh? Again I thought to myself...has she seen the show? Two episodes ago they had to pull an 18 wheeler and she can't walk through the mall with a piece of paper in her hand! Wowzers. And on we walked down the mall and up to the second floor.
So as we stood in the holding area waiting for our turn to go into the interview area my stomach grew more unsettled the longer we stood there. Which casting director would we get? Did I wear my Auburn necklace for nothing? Will we stand out? Rumble...oh no, and I looked at Angie and told her that I really had to go to the bathroom. Angie just looked at me with all the seriousness in the world and told me that if I crapped my pants she was going in as a single and she would pretend she didn't know me. GEE THANKS!
Again...this blog is getting long and I don't want it to get lost so I am going to save it and start another entry. Stay tuned....
