Contestant Blogs
This Week's Contestant
Sara S.
| Theme: | Picture Perfect |
|---|---|
| Hometown: | Isanti, MN |
| Week of: | 01-10-2011 |
POSTED 1-10
I have been watching Wheel of Fortune since I was six years old sitting on the couch with my Grandma as she tuned in for her favorite show. From then on, I was hooked. We would watch it all the time and as the years progressed, so did my puzzle-solving skills! For over 15 years, the number one on my bucket list was to be a contestant on Wheel of Fortune. Never in a million years did I really think the dream would actually come true.
I had been applying online for the show since I could remember and had never gotten any response. It was early August when there was a letter in the mail saying that the Wheelmobile was coming to the casinos in the area. I saw that notice and thought this is my chance. Two days at the end of September, they would be arriving in Minnesota. I went alone to the first casino Friday night ready and excited...as did about 2,000 other people. Great, awesome odds. I saw the amount of people trying to be on the show and thought, 'get real!' I spent hours upon hours waiting in line and then watching other people get chosen to audition for their chance to be on the wheel. After about four hours, I felt defeated. I said I wasn't going to go to the next casino on Sunday and waste another five hours of my life.
That Sunday morning, my mom said to me, "Are you sure you don't want to go? I'll go with you. We'll have fun." I only hesitated for about two minutes and knew it would probably be my last chance. We hopped in the car and drove an hour to the other casino. Same amount of people, same tough odds of getting chosen randomly out of that big tub of names. The first round of names is chosen. Whose name comes up?! My mother's. Not mine. My mother's. She doesn't even care to be on the show!! I had never been so angry with my mom until that point. So she got up there, got a chance to audition and came away with a paper Wheelmobile model. And I thought I felt defeated before!
Two weeks later, I received an email that said I had been randomly selected to audition to be on Wheel of Fortune. When I opened that email, I had never been so ecstatic in my life. But soon settled down because I knew the odds of actually making it on to the show are one in a million. The day of the audition I was so nervous and excited!! It was the most nerve-racking hour of my life! At the end of the final audition, one of the contestant coordinators had said that we would get a letter in the coming weeks if we were chosen to be on the Wheel. Soon after he also said that there were a few openings to fly out and tape at the end of the month and there would be a phone call in the next week or so, if you were chosen to tape then. Sure enough, a week went by and no phone call came (every time my cell rang that week my heart would race). I thought my dream had flashed, come and gone, right before my eyes.
And then that letter came in the mail, the single letter that was responsible for making my dreams come true. It said that I had been chosen to be a contest on Wheel of Fortune. I had never been so happy...it was the best day (until the day I went to tape the show of course.) Find out all about my day at Wheel of Fortune and the outcome of my show in the second segment of my blog. Stay tuned!