The Wheelmobile is in town. Open auditions were held Saturday in Sequim and yesterday and today at Emerald Queen Casino in Tacoma. How do I know this? My friend Beth's lifelong dream is to be a contestant on "Wheel of Fortune." She took her husband and family friend with her to Sequim to audition Saturday. (She needed help watching her 10-month-old son, Ethan.) Sadly for Beth, the husband and friend were called up to audition, but Beth struck out. That afternoon Beth called and asked if I would accompany her and baby Ethan to Tacoma for a second audition attempt. The plan was to be at all 3 audition times and keep the baby with us in the auditorium.
Yesterday we set off for Tacoma and Ethan slept most of the way there. We strapped Ethan in the stroller and attempted to gain entrance into the casino. We were told by several security personnel and the valet that there was no way anyone under 21 could enter the casino. (Never mind that the casino in Sequim let chidren into Saturday's auditions.) We pleaded and begged and I shared Beth's story with the powers that be to no avail. When we realized that Ethan would not be allowed admittance, I insisted that Beth try out and I would take Ethan for a ride around Tacoma to entertain him. Beth suggested that I take him to a place where he could crawl around. I decided to take him to Tacoma Mall--a place I'd never before visited.
Ethan and I set off to find the mall, but the little guy was upset that his mother wasn't accompanying us. He cried non-stop until we reached the mall parking lot and then fell asleep. Rather than wake him and take him out of the car, I drove around for 40 minutes--30 of those minutes were spent circling the Chuck E. Cheese's parking lot. Eventually Ethan awakened and I took him into Chuck E.'s to have some fun. What was I thinking? He again noticed that his mother wasn't present and proceeded to voice his displeasure. I got "looks" from many of the customers--looks like "you're too old to have a baby;" "that baby wouldn't cry like that if you were his real mother," etc. I took Beth's advice and put Ethan down to crawl, but he wouldn't have any of it. Finally, we left the store and only used 1 of our "tokens."
We drove back to the casino and arrived just in time to hear Beth's great news that she was given a chance to audition. Her name was the second to the last to be called. She was on cloud nine! Next it was my turn to enter the competition. I didn't have the same luck as Beth, but that was fine by me. We both left happy. Beth was happy she got to audition, and I was happy that Beth was given the chance to audition. I was happy just to help make that possible for Beth, and happy that I got to see the inner workings of a Wheel of Fortune audition. I would like to be a game show contestant some day.
2 comments:
Wow, quite the story! I've had that same thing happen to me with baby Shannon in Target. Everyone looking at me like, "take care of your baby! Why are you letting her cry like that?!" Believe it or not, I've never been to Chucky Cheese and also believe it or not, my whole life I thought the town was called "Squim" :)
The town is Sequim, but is pronounced "Squim," so you are mostly correct, Noelle.
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