The next day we spent at the studio. We left at 10:15 am. They had some bagels and whatnot for us to eat, and we met with our individual "producers" to go over our personal information (so Regis would have something to talk with us about if we happened to get to the hot seat). The contestants and their guests stayed together all day; we weren't allowed to talk to anybody else working there at ABC, and we had to be chaperoned everywhere we went (also, they checked us all when we arrived to make sure we had no reading material, etc.). In the early afternoon, we all went to the set to rehearse. They wanted to show us all the lights and music, etc., so we would be familiar with all that before we started. The producer, Michael Davies, talked to us and showed us everything; he was very nice and funny. One thing he told us was not to rely on Regis' pronunciation of things and not to be influenced by him at all because he is a terrible trivia person. He told us to take all the time we needed on questions because they edit out a lot of stuff, and he gave us some tips on how to think about some questions when we were unsure of the answers (which helped me out when I guessed on that silly Antz question I got). Finally, we did a few fast finger questions to practice for the real thing; I won one of those five questions and came in second on two of them, so that made me feel a little better. After that, they had a meal for us, and by the time that was over it was time to get dressed and ready for the taping (including makeup).
They start taping at or a little after 5 pm. We lined up to go in, and that is when we first got to see Regis. He shook hands with all of us and got our names so he could start putting names and faces together a little bit. They introduced us one by one to the audience there (which is just under 200 people). By then, we were all in place, so the taping soon started. Regis came out with the hold-over contestant from the last episode and got sort of tongue-tied in his opening comments, so they had to go out and come back in all over again. That lady was only at the $2000 question, and she made it up to $125,000, so it took a while for her to get through. They take little breaks for commercials, and they also take some more breaks right before and after someone makes it to the hot seat. I was not as nervous as I thought I would be, but I was worried about my little wave. For one thing, I can't really smile on command--I figured I was only going to get on TV for 2-3 seconds, so I didn't want to look too goofy. Secondly, when Regis introduces the 10 contestants, the audience is clapping and you cannot hear him call out the names. They start with the far contestant on each side of the set and go back and forth like that, so you have to watch for the red light of the camera pointing at you in order to know when you are supposed to wave. Luckily, I was the second person on my side, so I didn't miss my cue.
I tried to make myself expect not to make it to the hot seat; initially, when I got the call, I felt pretty confident, then the next week I did not feel confident at all, and by the time I got to New York I really didn't have a feeling either way for how I would do. I got a pretty easy fast finger question, putting comedians (Lucille Ball, Ellen DeGeneres, Don Rickles, and Chris Rock) in order by age; I knew I had them in the right order, but I didn't think I would be the fastest. Of course, I was the fastest, so all of a sudden I was up there shaking hands with Regis again (I looked back at the tape a couple of weeks ago to find that I only made it by one-tenth of a second). Even though, on TV, I answered the question and went immediately to the hot seat, in reality there was a break in between. Everybody probably thought I was an idiot on the first question because I took a couple of minutes on it (I took a good while on every question, no matter how easy)--I did not want to make some stupid mistake and embarrass myself. The first question was pretty much about 50-50 being the same thing as one-half. I told Regis I was going to take my time on the questions, and after the first or second one I said something about moving a little slowly because I was from the South. I think that is what gave Regis his case of the "giggles." I'm glad they did not include my comment about being from the South on the show, though, because I was afraid it would come off as sounding like I was insulting the South--this is the last thing on earth I would ever do. I got through the first five questions fine, with all of my lifelines intact, and then we took a break. I felt all right at this point; one of the guys at the show came up and told me that the worst thing that could now happen would be for me to go home with one thousand dollars--the show's people talk to the contestants during the breaks, which helps a lot; for instance, they told me that Regis was going to speak to my mother after we came back from commercial, so I knew I wouldn't have to say too much when we started back up. Normally, I start stammering and rambling when I'm nervous--I started to do that a time or two in all, but I guess I wasn't up there long enough to really start droning on and on about something silly. Of course, as soon as we started taping again, things went downhill. Momma knew what a Po Boy was, but I was not sure, so there went my ask-the-audience lifeline. Then, for $4000 came the infamous Antz question (who did the voice of the neurotic ant Z. I had not studied books and movies much at all in preparation for the show because I was fairly comfortable with a lot of that kind of stuff and I couldn't really figure out a good way, even on the Internet, to study those things. I thought that Antz was an animated movie, but that was all I knew about it. There went my other two lifelines, and I was really just guessing when I answered that question (Woody Allen). Then, though, I got a question about the Braves--now, all of a sudden, I felt a little better and thought I might at least make it up to $32,000 after all. That got me to $8000, but that was as far as I got. Books and writing are two of my main interests, so I hated to leave on a book question. I had never heard of the character (Kate Scarpetta) mentioned in the question; I knew the answer was not Agatha Christie, and I did not think it was Elmore Leonard, but I really did not know which of the other two was the answer. I hated walking away with just $8000, but I didn't want to lose what little I had already earned. After the fact, I felt like I should have figured out and guessed Patricia Cornwell; I felt like it was either her or Sue Grafton, but they had asked a question about Sue Grafton a few weeks earlier--that should have led me to guess Cornwell (even though I guessed Grafton after deciding to walk away). Now, though, even if I had thought about all this, I don't think I would have guessed and risked the money. The bad thing about leaving on that question was finding out that Patricia Cornwell used to work for the Charlotte Observer and, I have heard, married a man from close to where I live. I had never really heard of her, though (even though I have bought one of her books since I got back home).
I guess that's about it. After I got off the stage, they took us back to a couch behind the taping, so we watched the rest of it on a video monitor. There was a news crew from Iowa there that day, and they asked to talk to me for a minute, so I did that and came back. When I first got back there, the lady that was on before me told me I did the right thing by quitting when I did, which is true, but I couldn't help but think about the fact that she had just won $125,000 and I had won only $8000. It was and is disappointing to me, but there was really nothing I could have done differently; had I risked the money and missed, I would have really felt bad. It's hard to watch the show now, though, because I seem to know all of the answers up to $32,000. I just happened to get one of the few sets of questions that I could not get past $8,000 on; there's nothing I can do about that, but I can't help but think of what might have happened had I been there any other night and made it to the hot seat. Some people have asked me what Regis was like, and all I can say is that he seemed like the Regis I've seen on television for years now; I don't know how anybody cannot like him. I got to shake his hand three times and talk to him a little bit and earn a little bit of money, which is more than 8 of the other contestants there that night got to do, so I know I am lucky in that regard.
We came home the next afternoon. That morning, we walked around the general area for a couple of hours, but that is about all of New York we saw; we weren't too far from Times Square, but we didn't get to see it. We had a driver to take us to the airport, and I was surprised that we got to ride in a big, black stretch limo (I guess it was because I was a "winner" on the show); getting to ride around in a limo was pretty cool. We went back to the airport a different way than we had come; I think we went back through Queens. The driver pointed out the Empire State Building to us in the distance, and we got to go by Tiffany's and the Trump tower, but that was about it.
It's sort of hard to watch yourself on TV; I've got the show taped, but I don't know that I will want to watch it again any time soon. I didn't think I looked or sounded much like myself, but I guess that's what everyone would say about seeing themselves. My glasses looked like they were as thick as coke bottles, for some reason. I just wish I could have gone farther than I did; even if there were no money involved, I had a chance to show virtually all of the country how smart I am (which, rightly or wrongly, matters a lot to me). Still, I didn't make a fool of myself, so that is good. I had always hoped to be on television someday, but I would not have thought I would be on television and be seen by as many people as watch Millionaire. The good luck I had in getting there and being on the show, in the end, far outweigh the bad luck I ran into with the questions I got. There are so many people trying to get on the show; you have to know a little bit to make it up there, but, more than that, you have to be extremely lucky in getting picked at random to even get a shot to compete in the second round.
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