This day was SUCH a blur.
If you're ever going to do something like this, make sure you get plenty of sleep 2 nights before you go on, because you're sure not getting any the night before.
Anyhow, I was up at some ridiculous hour, got dressed, sat around for a while, and then went downstairs to catch the special hotel shuttle bus. I met some of the other contestants, including Beth, the returning champ.
We got dropped off at the studio gate and had to wait around for a while. Again, I was cagey/antisocial, again partly due to thinking of these people as competition and partly due to utter nervousness.
They came and got us after what was probably 3-4 minutes but felt like days and days. We went into the studio, had some breakfast, signed a whole bunch of waivers and such, and rehearsed our "hometown howdies" and went over the stories that Alex was going to ask us about.
I should probably have said by now that the contestant staff of Suzanne Thurber, Glenn Kagan and Maggie Speak are completely wonderful. They're funny, they tell you everything you need to know, and they're great at making you feel comfortable when you don't think that's possible.
Anyway, we got the speech on what would happen throughout the day. We were led out onto the set. We got a tour. We got warned several times where we had to be really careful so we wouldn't fall and injure ourselves. We all got to play practice games and get a sense of the buzzer. We recorded our "Hometown Howdies" (these are little promo clips that you record that they can send to the local station to promote your appearance on the show). Here's mine. I have no idea why I have a sort of drawl.
Finally,it's time, they've let the studio audience in while we were in the green room. They lead us contestants to the contestant seating area of the audience, except for the two people who've been chosen to play in the first game against Beth--> Laura and Michael.
While I was in the audience watching Beth slaughter Laura and Michael, I was desperately trying to get the hang of the buzzer timing - I had had a really hard time ringing in when I wanted to in the practice round. I sat next to Deepa. We whispered the answers to each other. She seemed really nice, but I remember thinking I didn't want to play her. So of course, after the game, we found out the next 2 contestants were going to be Deepa and I.
The game