Our 'American Idol' Experience: Part I

The week of July 29, 2008, Fox's American Idol reality show came to Salt Lake City to hold auditions. My younger brother, Jared, decided he wanted to audition this year, so he and his girlfriend, Lanita, came up from Las Vegas to stay with us in Provo for a few days. Jared was allowed to take one person with him to the auditions, so he asked me if I would go, and, being the supportive older brother that I am, I said yes. And of course, I was thrilled both to go and that he would ask me.

DAY ONE

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Our experience began in the early hours of Sunday morning, July 27. Before you audition, you and your guest have to go "register", which entails a staffer looking at your ID for a split second and giving you a wristband and two assigned seat tickets. The earlier you get your tickets, the better your chances of getting to audition. This process officially began at 8am in Salt Lake, with the line starting to form at 5am. We wanted to get there at least by 8am, which we did, but when we arrived, although we didn't have to wait long, we were not even close to the front of the line. We found out that there were like a thousand people ahead of us and that they had opened up the line at 7am, not 8am. It wasn't a big deal, but it wasn't a very impressive introduction to the American Idol process. Had we only known what awaited us on Tuesday...

TUESDAY: WAKE UP CALL

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Tuesday began much like Sunday did, just with less sleep. It was a lot of fun having Jared and Lanita here, so we got carried away playing games and stuff. It wasn't until late Monday night that I did the math and realized we probably wanted to wake up at 3am or sooner because the line started forming at 5am (the paperwork said to be in line by 5am, so we took that to mean mandatory). So, we woke up at 2:30am and planned to just get ready and leave, then eat breakfast somewhere up in Salt Lake. I even googled the Denny's and McDonalds nearest to the arena, I was sure one of them could accommodate us.

We got up there around 4:15am, drove around a little to scout out the area, figured we had enough time for McDonalds, so off we went. We get to McDonalds and the big sign is off, though the sign with the words on it was on and it said "Drive-Thru 24h" and the restaurant kitchen lights were on. We pull over to the drive-thru (which was lit) and waited. And waited... I drove to the second drive-thru, and waited. No response. Finally, I pulled forward to the window. We could see two workers in there maybe 15 feet from us, but they paid us no attention. So I honked. Nothing. I leaned out of my car and tapped the window. Nothing. Frustrated, we rushed off. It was now 4:30ish.

We parked at Denny's and ran inside, "Can we order something to-go?" The server replied, "Oh, I'm sorry we're out of to-go boxes." So I asked how long it would take to order a quick meal. "Oh, I'm sorry, but our grills are being cleaned. It will be about 20 minutes." Jared and glanced at each other in amazement and made our way back to the car.

I couldn't believe this was happening. At 4:45am, more and more people were walking up the streets toward the arena, and we hadn't even eaten breakfast yet, let alone found a parking lot and claimed our place in the rapidly growing line.

To be continued...