We’ve been battling ants all summer. It’s harder to fight them when you’re using an organic, non-toxic spray that won’t harm our cats. It requires constant vigilance.
My husband doesn’t realize that each year I get a little closer to heart attack age.
If you got a kick out of this post, subscribe to The Junk Drawer feed!
Some of you may remember my list of TV guilty pleasures. I shamelessly adore Family Feud. It’s the best way to clear my head after a hard day at work. The hysterical contestants, the bad answers, the giant answer board! What’s not to love?
I recently learned that my good friend JD and her husband, Dave actually know someone who was a contestant on the show AND WON! I immediately fired off a bunch of questions for him, which he so graciously answered for me.
If you’re a fan of game shows, I think you’ll enjoy this behind-the-scenes look inside Family Feud. Survey says LET’S PLAY 20 QUESTIONS!
1. How did you get selected for Family Feud?
My sister Joan (the second oldest of the five kids in our family) answered an ad in her local paper: “Family Feud is coming to Ventura to look for contestants” … Very typical of Joan, she rounded up her husband and three of her siblings and said “We’re doing this.” (At the time, 4 of the 5 kids lived in Southern California; our brother Dave was living in the Bay Area.)
2. Did you have to go in for interviews? If so, what kinds of things did they ask you?
In Ventura, we did an initial tryout. This was their first screening process. Essentially, they just wanted to see if we had a pulse and could formulate complete sentences. You’d be surprised—or maybe not—how many got weeded out at this stage. So we passed that test and were invited to Los Angeles to do the same kind of thing in a more formal setting for the producers.
3. How did you decide which family members would appear on the show?
Like I said, there’s five kids in the family; four were in Southern California at the time. So it was those four plus my sister Joan’s husband (since she was the one who organized the whole thing). This was back in 1991, so none of my nieces and nephews were old enough to be on (you had to be 12).
4. Did you have to “test” play the game to determine who would get picked?
We did a brief test in Ventura; again, just to see who could clap and jump up and down and be animated. Then in Los Angeles, we played a test game against another family. The producer acted as the host. That was fun. He loved us. (How can you not?) He all but told us at the tryout that we would definitely get called to play. This was October, 1991. We were expecting a call soon. November, December, January, February came and went. Nothing.
In the interim, I got laid off and took a job in Chicago (that’s where I met JD’s husband Dave). I moved in March. I had been there about two weeks and they called us to come in the next week. We couldn’t substitute players or we would have to start the tryout process all over again, so I flew back to be in the game show.
5. What do they tell you to do while playing? Must you clap hysterically, even at dumb answers? It seems to me this is a requirement and it’s one of the reasons I love this show.
Absolutely. They want personality. They want animation. No Neanderthals, please. Every answer is a “Good answer! Good answer!” and deserves to be clapped for. Family Feud is pretty much mindless, so you need to bring something to the table.
6. Are there breaks during taping? If so, what do they do with you/to you during that time?
Not really. What happened with us was that we went down on a Friday. They were taping six shows that day. They pretty much went in real time with about 15 to 20 minutes between shows. We just sat there and watched like the rest of the studio audience.
7. Did you have a strategy in deciding whether to pass or play after the head-to-head question at the start of each round?
A strategy? No, not really. It’s been a long time and I’m not sure we had the choice (that was from the Richard Dawson era in the 70s and 80s). I think which ever team won the face-off got to run with the question.
8. What happens if someone makes a big mistake during taping?
Like someone’s fly is open or they sneeze? There was nothing like that. No one ever had to say “Cut! Do it again!” while we were there. However, we actually lost our second game but they made a judging error and brought us back for the next show. You know, every now and then you’ll see that on Jeopardy or something but not on Family Feud. But it happened to us and they brought us back and we won two more shows.
9. How long does taping last?
Like I said, it was done in real time with 15/20-minute breaks in between. They did six shows the first day we were there, so it probably took 4 or 5 hours.
10. What’s it like to get “done up” in the makeup chair?
That’s funny. I have absolutely no recollection of being made up. I’m sure they did something just to hide the glare from our shiny faces but other than a little powder, I don’t think it was anything at all.
11.How did you pick your family’s “leader?”
This was Joan’s project. She’s definitely the personality of the family. She got the ball rolling. She drove the bus. She was at the head of the table.
12. What was your most memorable moment?
There are several. We were on for five shows and won about $13,000 total. The two fast money rounds we won were great, for obvious reasons. When we finally lost, they let us bring all the nieces and nephews and our parents up on stage during the closing credits. That was pretty cool for them to be on TV when they’re in grade school.
On the show, I had a couple good exchanges with the host (I answered “hemorrhoids” to “What do women complain about when they’re pregnant?” and the host gave a really good look on that; I answered “Nothing” to “What do women wear to bed?” and he said, “You’re not married are you?”)
I also remember a couple of things off stage. On the first day of taping, they did six shows. We didn’t get called until the last one. They kept coming over to the waiting area and saying “Ok, Smith family, you’re next.” “Jones family, you’re next.” And on and on. There were more families there than there were shows to be taped (just in case somebody flakes out). Anyway, we’re waiting and we’re getting a little nervous, edgy, anxious. Finally, before the last show, they said, “Shannon family, your next.” My sister Joan turned toward me and let out an absolute shrill of a scream. Just piercing. I looked at her like “What the f….?” … So we won that game and had to come back the next day for more taping.
As they prepped the families who we would play against that day, we sat out in the studio audience. At one point, Joan has to sneeze. And she’s starts “Ahhh.. Aahhh…” looking for a place to sneeze. Finally she just turns toward me and “AAAHHH CHOO!!!!” … It was the weirdest thing. Not like she didn’t cover her nose and mouth. It was just the way she was pausing and looking for a place to sneeze and decided I was as good a place as any. I know that has nothing to do with Family Feud, but I’ll always remember that and we still bring that up and laugh about it.
13. If you wanted to change anything about your performances, what would it be?
I just wish I wasn’t so nervous. Whenever we watch it (we had it on VHS originally and then one my nephews transferred it to a DVD) there are a couple of places I cringe because I just don’t like my delivery. It’s not so much getting questions wrong—some of those were pretty funny—it was more of how I sounded.
14. How much money did you win?
About $13,000 split among the five of us. We won three games and lost two.
15. How long did it take to receive it?
If I remember right we had to wait until after the show had aired, and then it was couple months after that.
16. How did you deal with nervousness?
It wasn’t too bad once we got going. I just had a real fear of drawing a blank. I’d rather give a bad/funny answer than none at all. But like I said, there was a couple of times I didn’t like the way I sounded when I gave an answer.
17. What is it like during the final round? Do you blank out when confronted with the fast questions?
My sister Kathy and my brother John did the bonus round. We chose them because they had previous game show experience (“Blockbusters” back in the early 80s).
18. Who is your all-time favorite host of the show?
Gotta be Richard Dawson, right? He set the standard. We were on with Ray Combs. He was funny; we really liked him. And then he committed suicide a few years after that. Which was really sad; he had about five or six kids.
19. Did you ever want to be on another game show, and if so, which one?
It was fun doing this one because there was five of us. We really had a fun time, as goofy as Family Feud is, it was a great family bonding experience. I like the big-cash/no-brain element of Deal or No Deal, but I don’t think I want to go up there and look like a bozo all by myself.
20. What was it like watching yourself on TV?
Totally weird. Like listening to your own voice on a tape recorder. “Do I look like that? Do I sound like that?” It’s just weird.
THANK YOU, ROB! I’m thrilled you agreed to answer my questions about the show. I can die happy now. Yes, that’s a little sad. But I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to be on a game show, and my favorite one, no less.
It’s possible none of my readers will have anything to say about this in the comments except “Kathy, you have to get out more.” But please check back. You just might have to answer more questions!
If you got a kick out of this post, subscribe to The Junk Drawer feed!
Yep. You landed on a humor blog, but I’m allowing myself to get serious for a minute.
I’m convinced the reason people lose there ever lovin’ minds at the end of the day is because they haven’t encountered one act of kindness since they woke up in the morning.
I know this because when I let a guy in front of me at a store checkout counter tonight, you would have thought I’d just handed him the million dollar suitcase from Deal or No Deal. And the buxom woman who goes with it.
The poor guy was shifting back and forth and sighing for what must have felt like an eternity for him. He thanked me three separate times for letting him slip through at another counter after he had to wait behind a woman making a complicated return. I thought he was going to hug me next and invite me to dinner.
We tend to think that people who lose it are mentally-unbalanced. I don’t think that’s the primary reason. It’s because everyone is in a hurry, nobody thinks of other people and when you just have to run to the store for a bottle of medicine for your sick kid after a brutal day at work, you’re on your last nerve and no one gives you a tiny little break.
It doesn’t take a huge donation to charity to change the world. All it takes are simple acts of kindness. It costs you nothing and pays big.
Has anyone shown you a small kindness lately? Share your stories and uplift me. Oh, and virtual hugs all around!
If you got a kick out of this post, subscribe to The Junk Drawer feed!
A computing consultant by trade, I tend to stay away from discussing tech support calls I get on this here blog.
Not because they’re not chuckle-worthy sometimes, but because there is an understood doctor/patient-type confidentiality agreement in place with the clients I serve.
But I think I can let one story slide. I feel I’m safe to share it because it happened many years ago in a former job and the woman who called has long since retired. I’m required to share it because it involved boobs.
The call went something like this:
Caller: Kathy, I’m having trouble getting to my forms for data entry.
Me: What screen are you on now?
Caller: It doesn’t have a screen number and I don’t know what it is.
Me: How did you get there?
Caller: I’m not sure.
Me: You should be able to get back to the main menu by pressing the F10 key.
Caller: Not working.
Me: Tell me more about what’s on the screen. Still not sure where you are.
Caller: It’s got some help stuff on it and it doesn’t have a place to enter a new screen number.
Me: OK. It sounds like you’re in a sub-menu. Try pressing the Esc key once, then F10.
Caller: Yes! That worked! Thanks!
Me: No problem. Boy, that’s a weird one. I still can’t figure out how you wound up there.
Caller: (Whispering) Well, I was a little embarrassed to tell you. I dropped a pen on the floor and when I leaned over to get it, my boobs smashed a mess of keys on the keyboard. I didn’t know which ones they took out.
Me: Oh, that’s rich. I don’t think I’ll ever get a call like this again in my entire career.
And I never did.
Remember, ladies. Watch your aim.
——-
Check out Humor-Blogs.com. It’s smashing!
If you got a kick out of this post, subscribe to The Junk Drawer feed!
I’m back home from my whirlwind trip to Toronto, where I met three of my good bloggy friends, Jeff, Jaffer, and JD, a trip that will now be referred to as “The Three J Tour.”
Our goal wasn’t so much to sight-see when we got there. The crappy picture to the left is the best one I took, which proves how little I worked at pointing and clicking. Could I have possibly shot a bigger structure out of alignment?
Didn’t really matter because, for me, this trip was all about meeting my friends.
I’m left with an intense feeling of gratitude for everyone who made it a success and gave me memories to last a lifetime.
And so instead of a lousy photo travelogue, I give you The Three J Tour “Thanks a Whole Lot” Award Ceremony:
Thank you, adventure-seeking sister Ann, for taking off work and driving 1,000 miles to get me there and back. Thank you for dealing with the stress of driving to an unfamiliar place and for not making me feel it was an imposition.
You’re a skilled and steady driver who knew exactly when the GPS lady had her head up her butt. You remained calm under pressure, even when the third street car driver in as many days honked his horn at you. “Have mercy! We’re from Pennsylvania!” For this and more, you get instant membership to the Sister Hall of Fame.
Thank you, easy-going niece Regan, for surviving two 8-hour car trips without complaint. I know in kid time, that’s an eternity. Thank you also for snagging that cab for us after we walked non-stop for six hours the first night. With my newly developed blister, you saved my pinky toe from further damage. You rock.
Thank you Jeff and your three delightful children, Brandon, Austin and Roseanna, for entertaining us while we walked approximately 23 miles exploring the city. Yes, I got a blister. Yes, my legs were lead the next morning. But I forgot all the pain because that night was a jam-packed, Amazing Race-like funfest I’ll never forget.
Additional kudos for not mocking me too much when it was clearly me who messed up the meeting time. You said in your blog last week, and I quote: “But the best part is, Kathy is sure to screw something up big time…” All I can say is you know me too well.
To Jeff’s wife, Charli, I’m sorry I sounded like such a goofus on the phone. I had just seconds earlier met your husband, had a dripping chicken wrap in my hands and a soda can wedged under my armpit. Forgive me?
Thank you Jaffer, for taking a bus 50 miles to meet us in the city. I don’t know anyone else who would do that for me. Hell, I wouldn’t do that for me. Thank you for our Sunday morning coffee klatch, entertaining me with your interesting life stories and being our personal tour guide. But what am I supposed to do now that you treated us to the world’s best gelato and I can’t find it around here?
Our relaxing and delicious lunch was one of the highlights of the trip. I’m so sorry you were the victim of that loose-stool pigeon who had you in his sights. I believe in my heart it was because you were sitting next to me, since wherever I go, trouble follows. Please accept my apologies.
Thank you JD and your husband Dave for letting us glom a day from your vacation to meet with us. I don’t think the hotel staff thought we were too weird for screaming and jumping up and down like fools right there in the lobby when we first met, do you? Thank you for agreeing not to walk 20 miles that day, because I’m quite sure some of my piddies would have fallen off otherwise.
Dinner that night was a blast and I felt warm and cozy, surrounded by friends and family, despite the torrential rain and lightning going on outside. You are exactly the fun and hilarious woman I knew you would be from your blog and our countless emails over this last year. I’m so thankful I had the chance to finally meet you (and your dear, charming husband!)
Thank you nice lady at the border crossing, who let us in the country even though you got suspicious when we said we were only there to meet people instead of truly vacationing. Thank you for not detaining us, even though you rightly questioned why Ann didn’t even know the full names of the people she drove there to meet. We know it sounded a little terrorist-y.
I suppose when you asked what we were bringing into the country, and we answered “Oh, just some whoopie cushions,” (gifts for JD) you realized we were only harmless idiots. Thanks for not probing any further.
Thank you Earth, for putting a small jutting ledge out beyond the railing on the U.S. side of the Niagara Falls, so that I could get close enough to take video. That ledge meant that if I did slip and fall, I would drop only five feet instead of hundreds, straight down to a skull-crushing, body-splattering death.
And one more thanks, while I’m at it, goes to my local newspaper for picking me up for a new feature they call Blogger Tuesdays, where they spotlight posts from “local bloggers of note.” They published my John Deere gift bag story while I was still in Canada. You hear that? I’m a Blogger of Note! Drinks all around!
I’m off now to bask in the afterglow of my Three J Tour and to figure out how I can meet the rest of you guys. What do you say? Junk Drawer Blog-A-Palooza in 2009?
If you got a kick out of this post, subscribe to The Junk Drawer feed!
Out shopping today, I came across this inexplicable gift bag among a wide selection of pretty and colorful bags I’d rather get. I cannot think of any occasion where anyone would want to receive this bag or anything in it.
Except perhaps Happy Birthday …. You’re old enough to mow the lawn now!
Or Congratulations on moving that big pile of mulch from here to over there!
How ’bout Wishing you the best at your tractor pull. Here’s mud in your eye!
If you’re a guy who likes to haul stuff around your yard, maybe you’d be happy if the bag contained keys to a Gator HPX 4×4 utility vehicle with an 854cc, three-cylinder, liquid-cooled, 4-cycle Yanmar diesel engine delivering 33 ft. lbs. of torque @ 2500 RPMs.
If you understand any of that and it excites you, your significant other has my sympathies.
If you got a kick out of this post, subscribe to The Junk Drawer feed!
While waiting for my car to be serviced today, I had the pleasure of listening in on a meeting between two elderly gentlemen sitting next to me. Complete strangers, I might add.
Since I had my laptop with me, I decided to take minutes.
Old Guy 1: I went to my doctor for stomach problems and he wound up finding I had polyps on my prostate.
Old Guy 2: I have arthritis. Have to get shots every three months.
Old Guy 1: Oh, I have it, too. My feet really bother me.
Old Guy 2: You better believe it.
Old Guy 1: Man, I can’t wear certain shoes. I got rid of the shoes I couldn’t even wear.
Old Guy 2: I like work boots. Can’t wear those either. I wear these (points to sneakers).
Old Guy 1: My feet are killing me. Especially this one (lifts and points to right foot).
Old Guy 2: Unintelligible rambling about pain in another body part.
Old Guy 1: Yeah, probably all that hard work outdoors. My dad died in his 70s.
Old Guy 2: Yeah, but hard work’s supposed to keep you young.
Old Guy 1: I had a dead tree in my back yard. Made my son help me with it. Let me tell you. I was beat for two days.
Old Guy 2: I have a hard time mowing.
Old Guy 1: On Wednesdays, I mow.
Old Guy 2: More unintelligible complaints.
Old Guy 1: My back hurts every day.
Old Guy 2: You ain’t kiddin’.
Old Guy 1: I have such a hard time losing weight (Me, to myself: I hear ya brotha!)
Old Guy 2: I can’t eat bread. If I eat bread, I gain weight right away.
Old Guy 1: That’s my problem, too.
Old Guy 2: I gave it up.
Old Guy 1: I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. Try to eat lean. My blood pressure’s always been a problem, but my cholesterol is great. 170.
Old Guy 2: Eh, but whatdya gonna do? I figure as long as I don’t have the Alzheimer’s gene, I’m good.
Old Guy 1: Yep. I hear that.
And then my laptop battery died. They went on like this for another ten minutes until Old Guy 1’s car was ready and the duel for the title of Who’s Got It Worse ended.
God help me. I don’t want to get old.
If you got a kick out of this post, subscribe to The Junk Drawer feed!
Shopping for jeans is not for sissies. I spent one and a half hours yesterday trying on thirty pairs of jeans to find one that fit. Yes, thir-TEE!
If jeans shopping were an Olympic event, I’d have won a gold medal.
I beat everyone into the dressing rooms, was able to ignore a screaming child in the store for more than 30 minutes and scored an extra 15% off my purchases because I made a pouty face for not having a coupon. I also lost two pounds by the time I was done trying them on. I was a one-woman Dream Team.
Some facts about jeans shopping:
FACT 1. Jeans advertised as “instantly slimming” are not slimming if your legs are shaped like tree trunks. Nothing can be done about tree trunks. There is no magical pair of pants out there to turn hulking logs into toothpicks. Believe me, I looked.
FACT 2. There are more women over size 10 than under size 10 in the world. Please stack folded jeans top down from largest to smallest, instead of the other way around, so I don’t have to crawl around on the floor looking for my size. My size has a hard time standing up from a squat, sweaty, exhausted position.
FACT 3. Also not for my size? Low rise jeans. Normally, I prefer covering my entire crotch. Thanks.
FACT 4. Jeans are heavy when you’re carrying ten of them at a time. Please provide wheel barrows.
FACT 5. Five-way mirrors are cruel and unusual punishment. I wanted to cry at every angle. I prefer to think if I can’t see my ass, no one else can.
FACT 6. That is not me in the picture.
If you’re the type of woman who can grab a single-digit-sized pair of jeans from the rack and have them fit perfectly, please refrain from telling me so. I might have to hurt you. And I could snap you like a twig.
—-
Laugh your pants off at Humor-Blogs.com
If you got a kick out of this post, subscribe to The Junk Drawer feed!
Maybe my Canadian friends could help me?
UPDATE: It’s a Junk Drawer miracle! My sister, Ann of the Shampoo Bag, was able to take a couple days off work so she could join me on a DRIVE to Toronto! No trains, no planes!
And by “join me,” I mean she can do all the driving and I won’t have to help much because she has a GPS and even if it doesn’t work, we’ll have maps. I have lots of trouble with those, too, but thankfully, her daughter is coming with us, so I’m putting her on map duty. If she was old enough to drive, we’d let her do that too.
Thanks everyone for your advice and offers of help! We’re crazy excited for this trip! I’ll catch up with comments later tonight.
If you got a kick out of this post, subscribe to The Junk Drawer feed!
So you all know how bad I am about buying cards. I’m equally bad at sending them and associated gifts to the recipients on time.
These are the cute thank you cards I received this week from the children of my best friend, who I only last week put in touch with gifts I owed them long ago.
They call me Aunt Kathy because I’ve been friends with their mother since I was five years old, so we might as well be sisters.
Judging from how late I am in the gift-giving department, their mother should drop me immediately from her friend roster. I suck.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Give me a smiley! I might send you a thank you card. Next year.
If you got a kick out of this post, subscribe to The Junk Drawer feed!
When eating out at chain restaurants, I almost always find stuffed mushrooms on the menu. And I’ve never been disappointed. Until yesterday.
After some late morning shopping, my husband Dave and I grabbed lunch at a popular seafood restaurant, which shall remain nameless for reasons that will become apparent momentarily. If you really must know, here’s a hint: It rhymes with Dead Mobster.
I’m not a big seafood eater by nature. Indeed, when the waitress asked what I wanted, I inquired as to which items came wrapped in bacon. Only the scallops did, but I do not like scallops, Sam I am. So I opted for two standards: mozzarella sticks and stuffed lobster and crabmeat mushrooms.
I asked for the cheese sticks to come out with Dave’s soup, and I’d have the mushrooms when his scallops and shrimp dish was ready.
We plowed through our appetizers with hearty enthusiasm and devoured their most excellent seasoned biscuits. It was a good thing I got filled up on sides because one of us couldn’t eat any more after that.
Soon Dave’s entree and my mushrooms arrived.
Dave made fast work of his bacon-wrapped scallops and shrimp, while I took a stab at the stuffed mushrooms. Within milliseconds, I knew I wouldn’t be finishing it because it tasted like the lobster and crab meat was mixed ala Lucy and Ethel in the classic I Love Lucy grape stomping episode.
Why? Because it smelled and tasted like FEET.
And not just any feet. Feet that ran the Boston Marathon, their sweat marinating in socks for six hours in broiling heat. And then baked in an oven, smothered in Camembert cheese. Feety enough for you?
My problem wasn’t so much that I hated my feet mushrooms, but that Dave was enjoying his shrimp and scallops dish. I didn’t want to complain immediately that my meal tasted like sweaty socks and ruin his own meal.
So I kept poking at it, announcing that I was simply too full to eat it. I also didn’t want to have to tell the waitress that they served me funky baked, feety-cheesed feet. As I poked around more, I noticed the mushrooms appeared uncooked and resembled brain matter. Yum.
I didn’t ask for the body part special, but this is what I was served. If this were a smell-a-blog, you’d all be gagging and running for the nearest exit.
As you can see, when presented with a plate of feet and brain, the first thing any respectable blogger does is take a picture of it. Ah, but don’t be fooled. It looked delicious at the time, but I wound up taking it home and throwing it directly in the trash. (Don’t worry. I’m not taking that bag out.)
The fact is, we were fooled. How? Because we decided to eat there based on a beautifully-shot commercial for this restaurant that aired on the Food Network, better known as Porn for Fat People.
We hadn’t eaten at Dead Mobster for about twenty years because we weren’t overly excited about their food. But we let expert editing and mouth-watering visuals get the best of us.
Truth be told, Dave thoroughly enjoyed his entree, though I chalk that up to the mere presence of bacon. If we decide in another twenty years to visit, at least I won’t be ordering the ten-toe special. I recommend you avoid it as well. See, I’m always thinkin’ of you guys.
If you got a kick out of this post, subscribe to The Junk Drawer feed!
Recent Comments