Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Part Deux

Step 4. Get to New York. This was pretty easy thanks to the Bellets'. Mom and I stayed with them on Monday night and took the train from Mystic to NYC's Penn Station, then cabbed it to 57th West 66th street (a straight shot up 8th Ave.) After a few delays on the train we made it to ABC studios about 30 minutes before I was supposed to get there. The weather was beautiful.

Step 5. Get in line, Bub. There was already a small line forming at 57 West 66th in front of a nondescript door and the buzz from those cued up was about the upcoming quiz..."I heard that it's really hard." "Oh it is, you have to answer 30 multiple choice questions and you only have 10 minutes. I have run out of time the two previous times I took the test." "If you fail the test you don't get an interview. But they let you take the test again in a week." Now the last comment made me nervous. I had already told friends and family that I was coming to New York to audition. If I failed the quiz and didn't get an interview I'd be *really* embarrassed. Oh well. At least I gave it a shot. I chatted with the guy in front of me. He was from one of the boroughs, can't remember which, and had taken, and failed, the quiz ten times. The man behind me took the bus down from Boston to take the test, it was his first time for the test and, as it turned out, his first time in New York. (Who over the age of 30 has never been to New York??? Anyway, nice man.) During my conversations the line has grown and now extends around the block. Wow. Suddenly, "Producers" (interns with clipboards) come out to check IDs and start shepherding us inside to the waiting arms and metal detector of two of the oldest men (who can stand) on earth. The had us empty our pockets and pocketbooks before letting us into what turned out to be ABC studio's cafeteria. I was told to pick up and manila envelope from another "Producer" and grab a seat.

Step 6. Sit and wait. They packed us in like sardines into one half of the cafeteria. After about 150 people were in they shut the doors as people were already lining up for the next round of tests that were happening in 45 minutes. At each table were four number 2 pencils and SAT looking answer sheets. (I started to have flashbacks to when I took the SATs in a huge gym at a prep school near my high school.) A woman from Philadelphia sitting at my table had taken the test, and failed, 7 times and filled us in on the details. "Ok, there are 30 questions on the test and it is 10 minutes long, so don't linger too long on any one question. If you passed, they will call people by number only, the number on your envelope which you should write next to your name on the "Scantron(TM)" sheet. Then you are interviewed. If you do well in the interview they give you an orange sheet and have you interview again with a producer upstairs." She went on and on and I tuned out buck picked up snippets of other peoples conversations..."this is really hard," "the questions are really random and more difficult than what's on the show." I started to get nervous again as the cafeteria filled up. Once everyone was seated a woman with a clipboard made a few announcements about the procedures. Philadelphia woman was right about what was to happen with testing.

While the clipboard lady was describing how to fill in the bubbles on the Scantron(TM) sheet I took a good look around at the competition. I figured that given the number of people in there they probably want to interview/audition 10% of those that showed up. My competition included, cat ladies, college drop outs, some normal looking people, others that payed a little too much attention and looked nervous when being told how to fill in a bubble sheet, some smart looking people, hipsters, and a handful of people who looked like shut-ins who only came out of their respective hovels to take this test (not people persons). I looked around at my fellow test takers and thought...I'm in the top 10% here, easily and relaxed a bit.