Sucked In

A few weeks ago the girls and I were walking into Target when a young gal in her 20's stopped us. She told me how beautiful my girls were, and how a talent agency had sent her out to find new talent. She thought my girls had great faces for "print work", and who knows, they might even get to be an extra on Hannah Montana or iCarly. If we were interested in auditioning, we were to be at a nearby hotel within the hour.

I thanked the gal for her kind words and ushered my girls into the store.

Amanda: Can you believe it? I'm gonna' be on iCarly!

Me: That's not what she said.

Amanda: Or Hannah Montana! Can we go, Mom? Can we? Can we?!

Me: We'll see. "We'll see" normally means "no", but I found myself actually considering it.

As soon as we got into the store we saw some friends who had also been "discovered" and invited to the auditions. You'd think that would be enough for me to realize there must be a "catch" to it all, but noooooo.

So we headed to the auditions. I know. So gullible. When we arrived, I couldn't believe how many people were there. After filling out some paperwork, we were directed into a room where we saw a video of young "stars" making thousands of dollars a day. Once that was over, we had the pleasure of listening to some gal talk 30-40 minutes on the importance of going to an audition "prepared". I still wasn't getting it.

It was around this time (90 minutes after arriving) that Megan decided she wanted nothing to do with the audition. I asked Amanda if she still wanted to stay. I believe her words were, "Heck yeah."

Now it was Amanda's turn to audition. She left the room we were in along with about 200 other child stars in the making.

Then the gal started talking to us about how if our child was selected from their audition, they were there, ready to sign them up for classes (acting, singing, dancing, modeling) to help them be successful in their future auditions.

DING!! DING!! DING!! DING!! The light bulb finally went on. We were invited here to give these people money for lessons!!! Helloooo? How did I not clue into this sooner?

Megan and I waited another 45 minutes for Amanda to finish her audition. The next step was to wait in line to find out if she "had what it took" for the "business". And now I knew they meant the "business of being ripped off".

As we were standing in line, I let Amanda in on my revelation ...

Me: Amanda, while you were out, the gal told us parents that if they think you're good enough, they want us to sign up for a bunch of acting classes.

Amanda: Really?

Me: Really. And I have to be honest with you, even if they say you're good enough, we don't have a lot of extra money, or time, for a bunch of acting classes.

Amanda: No, we don't. And besides, if God really wanted me to be in acting, He would have already given us a bunch of extra money for the acting lessons. But since He hasn't done that, maybe we should just go home.

Me: Maybe we should. I'm very proud of you.

Amanda: Okay, let's go. The audition was boring anyway.

Me: And you know that this is what you'd be doing all the time if you went into acting ... go to auditions with hundreds of people ... wait around while they decide if they like you or not.

Amanda: Acting sucks.

Me: Don't say "sucks", honey.

Amanda: Okay, acting stinks.

Me: Yep.