The Bachelor: The Windy City Calls

Growing up in New York, I grew accustomed to the cold winters. Periodic below subzero temperatures, the occasional snowfall, sleet, hail, and black ice. Scraping the morning frost off your windshield while you waited for the car to warm up before you could actually drive it. Never leaving the house without a pair of gloves and a woolly-bully hat. And maybe, you had that parent who made you wear the puffy, round winter coat, which when zipped up made you mildly resemble the long lost twin of the Michelin Man. We all know the ones I’m talking about. Needless to say, I’ve survived my share of rough winters, but what I was to experience here, in my second Chicago winter was one for the record books.

They said it was the worst winter Chicago had seen in over fifteen years. Breaking records of over sixty inches of snow in one season and going over budget by approximately three million dollars in snow removal clean-up. The city and surrounding suburbs had run out of rock salt and I can honestly not recall a day between Thanksgiving and the end of April without a trace of snow on the ground. And although signs of this horrific Chicago winter are now finally entering hibernation, the after affects still haunt me.

I never believed in it. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD). According to experts, it is a condition by where one experiences depression and mood changes during the winter months. After returning home from a quick trip to NYC in early February, I started noticing some unfamiliar changes in myself. For one, I became extremely anti-social, which is very uncharacteristic for me. I did not want to go out ~ at all. And when invited out, I would make any excuse in the book not to go. For about four to six weeks, I only left the house for work. I had no energy to go to the gym or even the grocery store. All I did was sleep and eat. EAT. EAT. EAT. I would order in almost everyday and by April’s end, I had gained twelve pounds. I felt as if I had fallen into icy Lake Michigan without a life-preserver to save me. I was in the deepest funk of my life since my mother passed away over six years ago. And then, all on a whim, The Bachelor came calling.

Two weeks ago, I went online to nominate my brother for the hit reality dating show, The Bachelor. We all know that show is an absolute train wreck, but you can’t help not to watch. As my cousin Ali says, “The show is like Fed-Ex, it always delivers.” Travis, Andy, Matt, Lorenzo? C’mon, we can’t help not to love them. And those crazy bachelorettes who sit patiently and wait to get a rose while their “perfect” bachelor is hooking up with every other girl on the show? Absolutely. Hey, whatever works and we all know it makes for good TV. Isn’t it all about entertaining the masses? So, for kicks and giggles, I nominated myself in addition to my brother (for a different episode, obviously). It was easy. All I had to do was fill out an online profile and submit a picture. Given my obvious state of appearance though, I selected a picture taken a little over a year ago, and rounded my weight down roughly about fifteen pounds. Like I said, whatever works, and the chances of me actually getting selected are slim to none anyway. So, no worries.

And then… two days later, on a late on a Friday afternoon my cell phone rings.

“Hello. Is this Jaime?”
“Yes.”
“Hi. This is Emily from The Bachelor.”
“OMG! You got my brother’s application!”
“Your brother? We’re calling for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes, for you. We received your online profile and loved it! We want you to attend a casting in Chicago on Tuesday.”
“You do?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Well, okay, I’ll think about it.”
“Great. We’ll email you all the information and what you’ll need to bring. Auditions begin at five o’clock.”
“Okay. Well….thanks for your call.”

Click.

Oh Shit.

Okay, my first thought ~ How the hell am I going to lose fifteen pounds in four days? Well, I am definitely not hitting Chili’s for dinner on the ride home. My second thought ~ Holy crap, there is no way I can get on national television in a bathing suit. For the love of God there are some things even my Miracle Suit can’t help. Followed by another thought ~ Please Dear Lord be casting for The Bachelor: Alaska, so that I can wear my Michelin Man coat 24/7. And my final thought ~ Maybe…they are casting for The Bachelor: Chubby Chasers on the Loose?!?! Who knows? But, there was no comment as supportive and loving as this one from my cousin Greg, “Um, Jaim, I think you should bring your own bouquet of roses.”

Ahhh… regardless of the situation, I had some serious business to take care of over the weekend and it started with black. Finding that perfect, oh so slimming, black dress.

Lets just say, god bless Ann Taylor. Within an hour I found it. Verging on the funeral wear look though, I jazzed it up with a pretty blue scarf, accented by a subtle purse. Now, taking a second glance in the mirror, I appeared innocent, virgin-like, and poised. Blair Waldorf or Audrey Hepburnesque. Clean and understated. A look that the show could definitely use. I decided to roll with it. Just some new bronzer and a little self-tanner and I was good to go.

The auditions were held Downtown at the Hard Rock Hotel. When Tuesday came, I left work a bit early to go home and make a miracle happen and to hopefully get down there a little on the early side. I had no idea how many other ladies, or shall I say contenders would be there.

Upon arriving at the hotel, I got on the elevator to the forth floor with a man who appeared to be someone from the show. I kindly introduced myself.

“Hello, are you from The Bachelor?”
“Yes, I’m Jesse the casting director and you are..?”
“Jaime. Kosinski. Emily had called from LA last week and asked me to come here to audition for the show today.” His response….
“To be ON The Bachelor?”
“Yes….”

He’s now looking me up and down ~ and sideways. I felt about two inches tall and one hundred and eighty feet wide. Would someone please throw me that life preserver?

“Okay Jaime, well I will be setting up in a few minutes. Just take a seat in the waiting room and fill out the appropriate forms. And just so you know. There are hidden cameras everywhere. We want to see how the girls interact with each other.”

When I get inside the waiting room there is me and about five others. Internally, I start sizing up the competition. You’ve got your typical beauty queen. Two token hot tub girls. A sweet professor who drove all the way from Ohio who teaches at Bowling Green and lastly, a girl who looks like she needs to eat about ten sandwiches. And me. Just me. In my slimming black dress.

Knowing the hidden cameras are rolling I start to ham it up. I begin asking the girls questions, offering witty, off the cuff comments, just trying to make everyone laugh when I soon realize, I am the only one in the room with any personality. Or at least any person showing it.

I started to picture myself on the show as the girl who would be the glue in the house of the twenty-five bachelorettes. The one trying to keep the peace instead of starting the cat fights. The nice, funny girl. The underdog who all of America would fall in love with. I would be the “Bob Guiney” of girls. If you remember, Bob Guiney was the chubby, very funny, bachelor whose heart was broken by Trista Renn. America loved him so much, they then they made him The Bachelor. He later ended up marrying gorgeous soap star Rebecca Budig from All My Children. Not a bad ending for a chubby, funny guy if you ask me.

They call my name.

After my run in with Jesse, the not so impressed casting agent in the elevator, I was extra nervous for my audition. I then said to myself, F--- It. It is a million and one chance that I would ever even get on the show, so just go have some fun, be yourself, and if anything, the experience will make for an entertaining blog. So, I put my A-Game on and followed Jesse into the audition room.

It all starts with the line up. He has me stand against the wall, holding a piece of paper with my name and phone number written on it. In rather large writing so the camera can see it. Feeling a need to break the silence I say, “Hey, thanks for sparing me any blank spaces on this paper for my weight and shoe sizes. I feared this may actually be Biggest Loser auditions and I’d be standing on a hidden scale under the floor and all of a sudden lights, sirens, and digital numbers would start dinging.”

He laughs. Really laughs.

He then takes a few frames of me from ALL sides. Again, I feel the need to say something as he is shooting my back side.

“Oh yes, Sir! You know, when I used to work in Harlem, this was by far my best side. Men whistled from miles away. I remember a nice African-American man once telling that he’d love to grab hold of me because a woman wasn’t a real woman if you can feel her ribs. So Jesse, when done craft services get here?”

He laughs again. I was now at complete ease. I think he was seeing a completely different woman then he first saw in the elevator just thirty minutes ago. And I had another revelation. I LOVED THE CAMERA. It brought out this side of me I never knew existed. I immediately felt the urge to call Bravo and get my own talk show. LOL!

Originally, Jesse told me that I would have five minutes on camera. Well, he must have really liked me because in the end he had me on well over fifteen. The questions he asked were as expected. What do you do? Where are you from? What is the picture of your ideal mate? “Breathing,” I told him.

And more… Tell me about your perfect date. “Well, Jesse, as someone who has enjoyed several months practicing Immaculate Conception, something “climatic” may be an obvious winner.”

Why do you want to be on the show? “Because I have a dire need to get on national television as a spokesperson for the Miracle Suit. I want healthy girls to not be afraid to work it girl!”

What do you expect to achieve from being on this show? Tell me about your prior dating experience. Do you have any fears about drinking or making out on camera? “No, I’ve embarrassed myself and my family way worse than that before,” I answered.

General questions as such. All of which I responded with both humor and sincerity. And what I loved is that through the entire audition Jesse smiled and laughed. And laughed and laughed. Of course I was hoping he was laughing with me and not at me.

When the last question was finished, he asked to me make one final comment with regard to how I felt about dating up until this point in my life and I said, “In the wise words of Charlotte York, I’ve been dating since I was sixteen, I’m exhausted! Where is he already?” And again, he laughed.

Jesse shut the camera off, grabbed my two hands and said, “You are absolutely adorable. I love you! That was one of the most entertaining, funniest auditions I’ve ever had and I’ve been casting for the show over seven years. You are great! What a way for me to start the evening’s auditions! I’m so glad you went first.”

I felt like a champ. A real winner!

And after that long Chicago winter, and twelve extra pounds (that really didn’t matter to the casting director of the most superficial reality show on television), I was reborn. Leaving the Hard Rock that evening, I was back. I had a spring in my step again. I felt great about who I was, at any size. It made me think that maybe even these ridiculous shows on television that profile the unrealistic woman saw me for who I am. A real girl. A contender. Perhaps even a contestant who ninety-nine percent of American women could relate to. Someone they could truly root for. We will see….

In closing, the past week has been a complete one-eighty. My funk has officially sunk. I am back with my running group. I joined a tennis clinic and even made a run to the grocery store. And last Friday, I went with my cousin to Houghten Lake, Michigan to try out for the Amazing Race. Like I said, I sure love the camera. I even called my father and told him I wanted to be a comedic actress! He laughed of course and offered a typical fatherly response, “Well, as long as it doesn’t cost me any more tuitions.”

If I can give any advice to anyone who has ever felt down in the dumps, bear down. It will pass. Sometimes all it takes is a little someone offering an unexpected rose.

Ps>> My book pick of the month: Love the One You're With, by Emily Giffin!