"I'm gonna be on television"

Yep, it's true! Unless something weird happens --  like, if the cameraman turns out to be my cousin -- I will be on Jeopardy! sometime in the near-ish future.



I have been watching Jeopardy! on and off since the early days of Alex Trebek's reign, in the mid-80s. I got back into it when Watson, the IBM computer that kicked Ken Jennings' butt, was on. My husband Charlie and I watch it most nights during dinner, and of course we answer the questions (and provide commentary on the contestants). I found that I was getting a lot of the answers right.



Let me pause right here. I know, of course, that the Jeopardy! convention is that Alex Trebek gives the answers, and the contestants give the questions as their responses. But for simplicity's sake, I'm going to call Alex's part "questions" and the contestants' part "answers." OK?



Anyway! I was getting a lot of the answers right, and that made me start speculating about going on the show. "If I were on Jeopardy, I would ..." and so on. This year, I finally signed up to take the online test (they offer it once a year in January or so). The test is 50 questions, and you have 15 seconds to answer each one. (So, to answer a question I get a lot: no, you couldn't possibly Google the questions while taking the test.) They don't tell you how you did. You fill out a form, take the test, and wait.



Thanks to Reddit (after the test, someone posted the questions and correct answers), I knew I had gotten 40/50, and I knew that was a passing score. I didn't know if that meant I would get to audition, though -- I figured plenty of people had probably gotten 50/50, and that those people would be given priority.



My online test was Jan. 16. I chose Detroit as my audition city (none of them was particularly close to where I live, and I have family in the Detroit area). And then I waited ... long enough that I started to assume I wasn't going to be invited to audition. "Oh well, it was still fun taking the test!"