Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

I do! I do!

So that is why yesterday, at 3:45 am, my alarm went off and I got up. No, this wasn't a drill for my rapidly approaching future of changing diapers and early morning feedings. This was a chance to change my life.

"Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" was auditioning people in Las Vegas and my friends Tyler and Kristee had invited me to go with them. So I met them at 4:30 in a parking lot and together we drove to an obscure casino in the north end of town.

After parking, we venture in to find only about a hundred or so people in line. Later on I found out that someone started the line at 6:30 pm the night before. Let it be known to the world that the person who did this has no life.

On a funny side note, the line ran in front of the entrance to the buffet. When we got in line, unbeknownst to us, we were the last ones they were gonna allow before the cut off the line and started it again further on up the aisle after the buffet. I can't tell you how many people showed up and thought we were the end of the line (to their credit, there were no signs or anything, just a security guard in charge of directing them back to the real line). What made it funny was that two or three times, two people would simulteaneously join the line. The gaurd would speak to them and only one of them would turn around. Meanwhile, the second fellow would stand there as if he couldn't hear the obvious explanation that this wasn't the back of the line and they would have to move. After the first guy would leave to join the real back of the line, the gaurd would have to get the second guy's attention, who was only a foot and a half away the first time the gaurd explained what was going on, and he would act like he had no idea. Cracked me up everytime.

As we are waiting there, they hand us a magnet with a number written on the back and the show's logo on the front. This is our admission ticket and our identification. They finally opened the doors and we head into a nightclub where they had set up chairs for the testing. We file in one by one and they pass out the tests. The first test was for a movie trivia week they are gonna do. They give you 10 minutes to fill out 30 questions.

As they were explaining the process, I quickly glanced around. Being my Mamaw's grandchild, the though passed through my head, "If I get in trouble, who can I cheat off of?" (warning: the following contains gross stereotypes that do not necessarily reflect my actual feelings) I looked to the guy on my right. He had one tooth. I was not going to cheat off of him. Kristee was sitting to my left. She graduated from a bible college. Prolly not going to be much help either. The person up to my left was kinda brainy, but once it started I noticed he was very concerned with someone cheating off him, as he covered his paper very well (DANG HIM!!!). The guy in front of me was really fat and I couldn't see over him. The lady up to my right struck me as the mother of four kids and living off of welfare.

"Hmmm..." I thought to myself. "Gonna have to go it alone Keck..."

The testing began. Some questions were very easy ("What's the first rule of 'Fight Club'") and some were very hard. So hard, I can't even remember them. Like, some film was created as an ode to this 1950's director. Name the director. I'm pretty sure I missed that one. But overall, I thought I did pretty well.

After the movie test was over, they passed out the general knowlege test. Once again, it ranged from easy to difficult, much like the show. I felt pretty confident on that one too. They were all scantron style of testing so I knew we would have the results pretty quick. We passed in the answer forms and tests and they fielded some questions as we waited on the results. Then they passed out T-shirts. This proved to be a very bad idea. They didn't have enough t-shirts for everyone so they just kind of generally threw them out to the crowd. You won't believe how much grown men and women will fight for a stupid t-shirt. I thought the guy in front of me was gonna take down a lady for it. Man he wanted that shirt. I felt like telling him he could just go to goodwill in about a month and pick one up.

Well, they interupt the questions to let us know the results are in. They'll read the passing numbers and those people are supposed to just stick around. Everyone else was free to go and fight for t-shirts in the parking lot. First they'll read the people who passed both the movie test and the general test. They read three numbers.

Those people are smart.

Then they read the people who had just passed the movie test. I thought I might be able to get on with that one. They read 6 numbers.

None were mine.

I'm starting to sense there is only a very small window of people who passed. So, I gave up, now knowing the standards must be pretty high. I figured they'd only keep between 5-6 of the general knowlege peeps. They started reading numbers. And kept reading. Pretty soon, I realized I just might have a chance. More and more numbers were read as people began a little celebration when they were called. All around, person after person celebrated as they won what I'm sure feels like the lottery. I just knew my time would come. Finally, they get to the last number.

A punch in the stomach. I exhaled.

The welfare woman made it.

Looking back on it, I came to a couple realizations.

First, they probably don't want someone like me who got every answer of the test right. It's not like they want someone on the show who could actually WIN the million dollars. They want the $50,000 contestants. I'm more the million dollar type. That makes more sense.

And second, I should've cheated off the welfare lady.