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Reporter has 'Millionaire' experience

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By RAY REYES

rreyes@tampatrib.com

Published: October 27, 2009

NEW YORK - I'd like to think it was a loose bolt, not paralyzing anxiety, that caused all the useless trivia I've absorbed over the years to suddenly evaporate when I needed it most.

In my first 15 seconds sitting in that teetering Hot Seat, I blanked out on the very first question of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." (The show aired Monday and will repeat today at 4 p.m. on WTSP, Channel 10.)

Host Meredith Vieira asked me what completes the lyric "goes with jam and bread" from the song "Do Re Mi." I considered several options, none helpful:

•Mom loves "The Sound of Music." If I get this wrong, she'll kill me.

•If I lose now, the story I'm writing will be reduced to a photo caption. Or a Facebook status update.

•I don't want my name to come up in a Google search of contestants who tanked on the first question.

•I can't believe I'm on this game show. It's so surreal. Um, how much time do I have left?

"Six seconds," Vieira said.

Months of anticipation boiled down to those crucial six seconds.

Cue obligatory flashback sequence: long hours in June spent at the Tampa auditions, waiting for word to see whether I was in the contestant pool, many phone calls with a producer for additional interviews, and a 12-hour wait that day to play the game.

My run at $1 million began at 7 a.m. Sept. 16, outside the studio on West 67th Street near Central Park.

I passed the time by meeting other contestants. We all had hopes of taking home prize money, but a few needed to win big.

"My family is having a rough time right now," Tony Westmoreland, a rural mail carrier from Camby, Ind., said after the taping. "My wife and I have lost about $1,000 a month in income."

Once inside, I and the 10 other contestants were placed in what a producer called "contestant isolation." Until just before showtime, the only people we had contact with were show staff and fellow contestants.

Associate producer Kevin Thompson said it's typical for contestants to form friendships and root for one another. That's what happened to my group after we learned that Shawna Edwards, a waitress from Flint, Mich., brought along friends and co-workers wearing shirts with "Shawndog Millionaire" printed on them.

So Thompson dubbed us the "Dog House."

We toured the set before taping. It's a lot smaller than it looks on TV. You're also asked to practice getting in and out of the Hot Seat. It's trickier than it looks because the seat's not bolted to the floor.

Minutes before showtime, you're introduced to a cheering audience while the opening licks of The Who's "Baba O'Riley" plays and an array of stage lights blaze.

The sensory overload stops once you're back in the green room, waiting for hours more. One by one, producers call you down to the set in random order.

By about 5 p.m., it was my turn. So what word completes the line "goes with jam and bread"? I asked the audience. The majority said "Ti," which was the right answer.

I kept playing until the $10,000 question, which was - I'm paraphrasing - "The iPhone's Runpee app does what?" I used the Ask An Expert lifeline and talked to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

He guessed that the app lists lulls in films, informing moviegoers when it's best to use the restroom. DeLay was right, and he doesn't even own an iPhone.

I said the app lets users know when to make bathroom breaks on road trips.

I still won $5,000. Winning $1 million would have been nice.

But from taking the tests at the audition to answering questions on the Hot Seat, it's an experience you can't buy.

Even with a million dollars.

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