At Least I Lost Two Pounds.....

PART ONE (for those who need to catch up with us in line. No cuts, no butts, no coconuts...)

So we decided to stay and call the town crier's (cryer's?) bluff. 13 hour wait my ass. I know that casting directors in general, are usually a bunch of pussies, there was NO WAY they would be interviewing people until 1:00 am. (if anyone from Deal or No Deal casting is reading this..I'm not talking about YOU, I'm talking about your co-workers. YOU, you my friend, you're an oak. You could most certainly have been there til' 5am because you're a bad ass like that.)

*re-applying chapstick* ass kissing makes my lips ever so dry.

Plus, the cut off time to get in line was 2 pm, it was barely 12 pm and there was already a hundred more people behind us.
This was an obvious scare tactic.
They were separating the thick crust from the thin crust and it worked. (sorry..I'm craving pizza right now.) The thin crusted folk shuffled back to their cars and within a couple of minutes, we advanced up to the part of the line where the town cryer (crier?) had originally deemed to be a 8 hour wait. We were in a jovial mood and stuck to our guns that this would be a 5 hour wait.
Looking back, I was glad I couldn't see the end of the line, had I known the little maze we had to go through and how far back we really were from the front of the line, I would have threw my fig newtons in the air and joined the thin crusted folk.

But I was blissfully ignorant as to what lay ahead of me, so we chatted it up with the people around us.

Behind us: A really really tall older gent holding a small cooler. This guy was nice enough. He apparently used to be a rickshaw driver in Downtown San Diego. But he retired from that and currently owned a couple of rickshaw companies; however, he was going to fib a little to the casting agents and say that he was still a rickshaw driver. I observed his massive 6 month pregnant looking belly with much doubt in my heart (picture a pregnant bear on his hind legs..that was this guy). The odds that the casting agents were going to believe he was a rickshaw driver was about the same odds as the casting agents believing that I was really a tall black guy who played center for the Los Angeles Lakers.
But high five to him for trying right?
Anyways, somehow we got bamboozled into carrying his cooler while we were in line! This man was a salesman like I had never encountered. He offered his cooler for us to sit on after a couple hours of waiting, which was music to our aching feet. After we had settled our sorry asses on his cooler, he immediately had to do something (get something to eat, go to the bathroom, take a call, bake a cake, stage a coup, fly to Milan...) and excused himself from the line. Mind you, the line moved fast enough so that really, we were only sitting for a couple seconds and CARRYING the cooler the majority of the time he was "doing something." His big jolly pregnant belly and informercial voice conned us into sitting (carrying) his cooler several times during our wait. We could have been carrying a human head for all we knew, that bear never did open that cooler the entire time we were in line. Very odd.

Behind that guy: Two girls..one who was excited to be there and the other one who was obviously dragged there by the excited girl. They were hilarious and made standing in line so much more bearable. Eventually, the friend who didn't want to be there boned out about halfway into the wait to go pick up her husband from work. She promised to come back but we never saw her again. The uber happy chick found some of her friends about an hour ahead of us in line. She struggled over the decision of waiting with them or with us, because she had grown to love us so. Being the awesome people that we were, we encouraged her to wait with her friends because had we had a chance to cut an hour in line, we would have taken it so fast she would have choked on our dust and cupcake wrappers.

People in front of us: A couple. Two of the quietest people ever. I think they said about 10 audible words to each other the whole time, either that or they whispered their discontent about the loud girls behind them it into each other's ears. Who knows. But the guy did give us his extra Wetzel Pretzel, which was so very buttery and delicious (god I'm hungry right now) THEN he was our favorite dude in line....up until we finished it of course. And by "WE finished it" I mean, I, inhaled finished it. I think Neen got to lick the wrapper. (that's what she gets for taking a smoke break and leaving me responsible for the junk food.)
Valuable lessons learned that Saturday.

But all in all we definately lucked out on the peeps around us because had I been behind, in front or ANYWHERE NEAR this one chick, she would be walking around today with one of my flip flops permanently shoved up inside her arse. I'm sure she was a very nice lady but she pretty much tap danced on everyone's last nerve by continuously running up and down the line hollering to us about raising our hands to do a "line wave," and then later inviting us to a "prayer circle" (yes, because you know, God's priority is blessing those who are in the Deal Or No Deal line and the rappers on all those awards shows. God is swamped.)

Other crap I saw.....
* A COWBELL! Yes! I so called this one! In fact, I saw two cowbells hanging around the neck of two men dressed as cows. I have no comment on that one.
* Makeshift Deal Or No Deal "suitcases" fashioned out of simple household items, usually foil, some out of macaroni, and some were even bougee enough to buy an actual suitcase.
* Babies...like INFANTS..some so young, I could have sworn they were born while we were waiting in line. Can we not drop them off at moms or pops? Get a babysitter? Or hey, I have an idea. One of you stay home and one of you stand in line. There was a couple there with a 3 year old, a 1 1/2 year old and the moms was PREGNANT..like 6 months preggers! WTF??? GO HOME. APPLY ONLINE and take the kids to the beach. Some people should seriously should be spade or neutered.
* Neen do 5 crossword puzzles in 5 seconds. No seriously. This girl is a freak with crossword puzzles. I'm sure she'd say the same about my giant pretzel eating skills.

Okay, this post is getting longer than I wanted it to be and if I make this another "to be continued.." post, some of you impatient ones will come to my house and lynch me. So long story short, we FINALLY made it to the casting tents.....9 HOURS LATER. I had lost the swagger in my step at around hour 6. My entire lower half was pretty much numb and whenever I moved, parts of me cracked that I didn't even know had the ability to crack. They were interviewing 10 people at a time for each tent (there was about 5 tents in all) and by the time we were up, they had already eliminated the personal interviews (they would pick out the one they liked and talk to them more). At this point, they were giving us 20 seconds to do our pitch ("HI! I'M ELAINE AND I'M KOOKY ENOUGH FOR TELEVISION WITHOUT BEING TOTALLY INSANE! WATCH ME DO THE THE RIVER DANCE! I'M SO UNIQUE. PICK ME!") and sending us on our way with a promise to call us if they were interested. (See I told you casting directors are wussies). So let that information sink in a bit....
9 hours in line.
For 20 seconds.
Yeah. That's right.
I'm an idiot for waiting in this line. Wanna fight 'bout it??? (props if you know what t.v. show I'm stealing that from..)

So they told us in line to tell the casting director something about ourselves, NOT why we love the show or WHY we need the money. But as usual, stupid people must always throw a COG in my otherwise well-oiled wheel of life and ruin my SHIT.
The first guy did his 20 second schpeel..kind of funny and kind of whiney about how he lives in a trailer and wants to buy his wife a wedding ring.
HIS WIFE goes next...starts blubbering about orphans in Calcutta or disabled puppies....I don't know, I wasn't listening..I was paying attention to the casting director whose eyes glazed over with disinterest, for her and our group in general. Next three people...more sob stories......my dog died of parvo, my husband lost his job, I've been in an apartment since 1902, my foot is missing, Jesus doesn't love me, wah mutherfuckin wah....
The giant bear guy, myself and Neen were the last three to be interviewed. We were of course, chipper as fuck to overcompensate for the sad sacks that went before us. Neen talked about her body odor phobias, I talked about my Polkadonna dreams and bear guy tried to convince the casting director he was a rickshaw driver. The casting director questioned his fitness (they're wussies sure, but they're not brain dead) and bear guy, the charismatic salesman that he is
claimed that as much as he loves being a rickshaw driver, he loves food even more. The guy was full of shit, but he knew how to fling it that's for sure.

But even the Joyful Three Amigos couldn't get rid of the wet blanket that the Waaaahmbulance crew had put over our casting tent. The casting director was only slightly amused by our efforts.

"Okay. Thanks everyone! I'll call you guys. Next group."

(sigh)

They told us not to get discouraged with the "I'll call you" line, because they do indeed call the people they are interested in. However, it could take up to one week to six months to get a phone call...IF they're interested in you.

Like the totally delusional person that I am, I'm expecting a call.
Because how can you deny Polkadonna???
You can't.
So they must call.
They won't be able to help themselves.
..
I might still apply online though to refresh their memory.
..
..
..
that's it?

Talk about anticlimactic ending huh?
I bet you all feel like you just watched Waterworld.
Or had sex with Kevin Costner.
Same thing.

I did lose two pounds for standing in line so long.
Ya feel better now?
I thought so.

*EDIT: NEWS Video of the LONG ASS LINE. I was over in a corner somewhere trying to open a slim jim and missed the camera as it passed by. Superstardom dodges me yet again.
(apparently 8000 people showed up for the casting...)

Here's a artistic rendition of a helicopter's view of the Deal or No Deal Line. Try not to be too impressed with how lifelike it looks. Some people have mistaken it for an actual satellite photo, but no, that's just my awesome Paint Skillz.
Hollah.

click to enlarge and marvel at my talent: