Another post from the archives of Chicago Moms Blog. Originally posted in October 2007.
A friend passed along an e-mail announcing an audition call for commercial for a large food company. I jumped on it and called the audition hotline seconds after I read the note. Minutes later, I was working my way through the screening process.
Yes, my boys love the food product in question (really)! Yes, they are active and healthy (except that my eldest has been sick all this week)! Yes, my family is fit and active! We walk a mile to our town's Farmers Market on Sundays (when we're not in a hurry). We go on long family bike rides (twice a summer). DH and I work out regularly (when our schedules allow).
But what this poor, kind woman really needed to know...
What she had to ask was, are we fat?
I get it. I mean, how can you sell a healthy food for an active lifestyle with a commercial featuring a bunch of overweight couch potatoes?
But do we fit the bill? The boys absolutely do. They hang out near on the low end of the height and weight charts. DH's doctor hasn't told him to lose weight. And when I saw my internist a few pounds months ago, she said I was within my ideal range. But unlike some "fit" women, I don't have the body of a teenage girl. This mama has some curves! I've got plenty of T and some A to spare. Is my big butt going to cost my family their 20 second of fame? Worse yet, is the director going to make some disparaging remark about my ass and then rip into the kindly assistant for not doing her job?
I'll try my best to lock away my inner critic and I'll shove my inner stage mother in with her. We're not the Von Trapps or the Partridge Family; this is likely the only family audition we'll ever have. We should just make it a good time, right?
P.S. The audition was for a Quaker oatmeal product. My rather theatrical younger son who loves oatmeal and was thrilled at the prospect of being on TV, was an absolute goof during the interview. He mostly shut down out of shyness and then contradicted me at every opportunity, making me look like an evil stage mother who dragged him to the audition. Also, we were the last family to audition and the casting folks had clearly had a very long work day. Needless to say, we've never done anything like this since.
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