A Taste of Humility

Maybe it tastes a little like this.

That's a bowl of cheese soup my brother Bryan ordered in Michigan. Yuck.

Anyway.

A month ago, I decided to try out for Who Wants to Be A Millionaire again. Last year, I tried out, passed the test, had a two minute interview and was out the door. I later received a postcard telling me that I was not selected to be in their contestant pool.

So I decided to do it again this year, and this time, I convinced my brother Jonathan to come with me. We took the bus into Manhattan and took the subway up to 59th street, where we walked to the ABC studios on 66th street. While on line to get in, we met a couple from Long Island. The husband was the one taking the test, while his wife would wait outside for him.

When you get inside, you realize that you're in the cafeteria. Everyone sits at the tables and takes the multiple choice scantron test there. As we sat down, the guy coordinating the whole thing announced that there were theme weeks that you could also try out for, just by writing them on our scantrons. If you wanted to complete with your fiance on "Play to Pay for Your Wedding" week, put down your fiance's name. If your name matched a famous person's name, write down "Famous names." (Jon and I glanced at each other at that one. He shares his name with a major well-known major league pitcher, but spells his first name differently. I share my name with a D-list actress. We didn't put famous names down.) The last one was for undergraduate college students. Jon wrote "college" on his scantron.

There were 30 questions on the test. I was unsure of 12 of my answers. Not good.

When the announced the results, Jon's number was called. Mine wasn't. Crap.

I went to wait outside for Jon to finish his interview. Out there I met up again with the woman behind me in line; her husband has passed too. We waited. And waited. And waited. People were coming out from their interviews. Other people were let inside for the next set of tests. Then the door closed. They still hasn't come out.

I walked up to a coordinator on the street and asked where they were. "Oh, they probably had a video interview," she said. "They get let out on 67th."

A second interview? A video interview? I didn't have one of those last year. No fair.

After almost an hour of waiting, we finally saw them coming down the street. They'd been led up to the studio, where they'd been interviewed on camera after the first interviewed in the cafeteria.

So in one try, my brother had done better in the Millionaire tryouts than I had in two. I can take comfort in the fact that there's a possibility that the college passing score was lower. Also, I've earned more money on a game show than he has...so far.