My friend Sherri and I went to the open casting call for The Amazing Race at ApplianceSmart in Apple Valley on Friday. (Pictures.)

When we arrived, they handed us applications to fill out. We had both worked on ours previously, so even though we didn’t complete them before, we had most of our answers in mind. You could tell the questions are designed to provoke conflict. They ask you how your partner has disappointed you and what your pet peeve is about them, but nothing about why you like them or anything.

We stood in line between rows of stoves for our chance to make a video. Near the front, we handed our applications in to a woman and selected New York as our callback city, should we be selected. Sherri lives there and I figure since she came here for this, it’s only fair for me to go where she lives for the next round. Then we got in another, shorter line to wait for our turn on camera.

The camera area was basically a corner of the store sectioned off by giant appliance boxes. We had two minutes to go in there and do our thing. Pauly D told me the key was to have energy, and I think we did all right in that regard. We certainly didn’t have any dead air. The camera guy was chuckling at us the whole time, and told us he thought the “internet friend” thing was a pretty good hook. He hadn’t seen anything like that before. I figure that might probably be pretty unique in Minnesota, but I find it hard to believe they haven’t seen that before in all the applications that get mailed in.

We thought there might be representatives from TAR there, but it was mostly just local WCCO folks. The woman who collected our applications said this was a pretty big group for a TAR tryout, and that there were a lot more people here for this than show up for Survivor. Her thinking was people are more chicken to audition by themselves. We were thinking it would be the other way around as it would be harder to find someone to do try out with you.

I had seen all sorts of info on the Apprentice casting call on the news and around the local blogs, but not a peep about the TAR casting call, so I didn’t really think it would be that crowded. We figure there were 150-200 teams there. We got there at 12:50 and were done by about 3:30. When we left, the line was a little longer than it was when we got in it, and we were team number 74.

We thought most of the other teams were pretty unremarkable looking. Except for the pilot and flight attendant pair. Nice gimmick, whatever. They had to go out and get those outfits, too, because it’s not like they could wear their actual airline’s uniform on tv. Pfffft

Just as we were about to go in and do our taping, a guy in line behind us (who we had just been making fun of) asked us what was up with our shirts and what blogging was (because we were wearing matching “I’m blogging this” t-shirts). We were all, “You don’t know what blogging is?” Sherri said it was a kind of website and he was all “You don’t know what it is?” and we were all “Of course we know what it is.” I told him to Google it, and he was all “Google?” *sigh* Never mind. He had bad sideburns and perfectly frosted/gelled hair and kind of a hippie shirt and that sort of surfer dude, I’m-too-cool attitude. We’re in Minnesota, buddy, in case you hadn’t noticed.

I would love to be able to sit in while the TAR people watch these tapes. Just to hear the kinds of comments they make.

So anyway, we think we rocked it. We got lots of compliments on our shirts. We feel good about our video. We got positive (if minimal) feedback. We’ve got a good hook with the internet friend/blogging thing, and aside from being two twenty-something ladies, we’re demographically diverse. But it’s probably gonna be September before we hear back about the next round. They’re still accepting applications by mail until July 26.

Related posts:

1. Metroblogging Minneapolis Applications are Closed
2. Rock it
3. Casting Call for Wife Swap
4. ¡Cuba Libre!
5. Looking for Race Course Managers