It's Time to Play The Family Feud (Or, How One Family Conquered the Family Feud Audition)

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

I am nothing if not a taster of life.

For some time, the delightful DP and I have been hankering to get an audition for our favorite TV dinner pastime, The Family Feud.  We have been meaning to send in an audition tape for forever but, like with many things, I just didn't get around to making The Big Idea into reality.  However, when the announcement came that The Feud was making its way to Charlotte to audition families, we knew the time was now.

And so I did. 

Here's what I wrote:

We are a modern day mini-Brady Bunch blended family from Greensboro, NC. We watch Family Feud as a family EVERY NIGHT from 7pm to 8pm while we're making (and, sometimes, eating) dinner! We all shout out the answers to the questions while everyone makes fun of me for shouting out the same answer OVER and OVER. I am Kelly Patterson, a 46-year-old mother of two boys and stepmother to two girls. I am in marketing and I do a little writing on the side. The Husband, age 50, is my new husband who is the father of two girls and new stepfather to my boys. He manages a shop that restores classic BMWs and teaches High Performance Driving School instructors. (He can drive FAST!) DP is his beautiful daughter, a 22 yo college student who lives with us. She'll be in Serbia until December 7 on an internship with the US Embassy there. My son Thing 1 is 17 and is a marching band leader who is searching for colleges and my son Thing 2 is a cool 15 year old who thinks he is a whiz kid at the Family Feud. We would love to come audition in Charlotte, NC! DP said she could FaceTime or send a video for auditions! Yes! Pick us! Pick us!

And, guess what?  THEY PICKED US!

Unfortunately, they wouldn't allow a FaceTime audition so we enlisted MP, The Husband's youngest daughter, to join us.

And so for a few weeks, we watched The Feud with a new, more discerning eye.  We (and by "we," I mean "me") analyzed the outfits of the contestants (they're always color-coordinated and the women always wear dresses), practiced channeling our inner Average American to get the top 5 (or 6, or 7, or 8) answers and even rehearsed our aggressive X signs with our arms to taunt our family opponents.

When audition day came, we. were. ready.

We made our way to the Omni Hotel in Charlotte.  Our young charges looked g-o-o-d dressed to impress.  MP brought her Fiancé and The Husband's tiny grandson as Cheerers-And-General-Hangers-On.

We navigated the always-harried Charlotte traffic and eventually found our way to the lobby of the Omni where we were instructed to follow the herd of Family Feud wanna-bes to the our family audition room.

Inside the room were about 50 or so eager families.  Some may have been a little too eager and hyped up on Mountain Dew (and I'm referring to the 'shine version and not the caffeinated version).  Those Woo Girls jumped up and hollered at the slightest provocation.  They made me glad I wasn't part of their family (I know, it's mean, but it was in my head!).

The rules were explained to us.  No video.  Excitement was mandatory.  Family huddles were also mandatory as was smiling.  Two rounds of questions for two families at a time with each family getting the opportunity to go first.  No buzzers were available but there was a bell because...well, people wanted to PRESS SOMETHING.  On-deck families were called to be ready so that delays were minimized between rounds. Check. Check. Check.

We watched.

The VERY first family had a team member who COULD NOT REMEMBER the things her family members had said.  When they were repeated to her, she would inevitably use one of them.  We couldn't decide if she was doing it on purpose to get more camera time or if she really was missing that many brain cells.

We watched some more.

For the next two and a half hours, we sat while teams of families went up, answered their questions and left the room with high fives and hoots aplenty.  The noise was nearly migraine-inducing between the buzz of the activity in the front of the room and the bored families waiting for their turn in the back of the room. While the other families were up, the Things studied their Family Feud questions.

We watched. And waited.

Finally, it was our turn.  We channeled our energy and made our way to the front of the room.  We wrote our name on the whiteboard (as previously instructed) and posed with smiles for the camera.  The Husband was our Team Captain and he steadily placed his hand on the table and one hand behind his back (as instructed) for the first question.  "One hundred people surveyed, top seven answers on the board.  Name something in your home that you want to remodel."  DING.  The Husband answered, "Kitchen!" with enthusiasm.  Number one answer!  The question went through our family, one by one, until we finally gathered our three strikes.  The other family had the opportunity to steal...and didn't!  We won that round.

Round 2.  "100 people surveyed, top eight answers on the board.  Name something people do more of when they're worried."  DING! I get the question and I immediately say the answer that popped into my head, "DRINK!"  I totally thought I had it.  Because WHO DOESN'T DRINK MORE WHEN THEY'RE WORRIED?  Stupid 100 people don't, apparently, because that answer wasn't on the board.  That was OK, though.  The other family got the question and we formed our Mandatory Family Huddle.  Our ace in the hole, MP, came up with our team answer but we needed to shout answers at our captain when the other family struck out.  They did.  We came out of our huddle and started yelling answers to The Husband.  He turned and gave our answer, "They BITE THEIR FINGERNAILS."  Ding, ding, ding!!! We won the round!

Our host thanked us.  We exited the noisy, hot room and found a bigger-than-life-sized picture of Steve Harvey to pose with.

So. Awesome.

It was a great deal of fun to be a part of the audition process. Our chances of getting on the show look slim (because there were SO MANY PEOPLE!) but, hey, how many families get the chance to say they had a shot at The Feud?

Our family can now say that we played a little bit of The Feud.  We missed our DP but there will be the chance for OTHER Great Family Adventures again.  I feel certain of it.

Still winning.  This blended thing is totally going to work out after all.