I’m the last person you’d expect to be out of bed when I don’t have to be. My theory is that it’s impossible to function properly without enough sleep, therefore getting up early is actually wasting your day being less than productive. So to find me waiting in line at eight in the morning for In the House auditions proves just how bad I want to be on the show. I know, I know, it’s kind of corny to want to be on a reality TV show, but this is In the House. The king of reality TV. The show that launched Tansy McDonald’s broadcasting career. She’s the one that was on In the House: Tampa Bay. The blonde with the big chest? Now she does the TV Guide updates on its preview channel. Or used to.

“This is ridiculous, Ally,” my friend Grant says, stomping his Timberland sandals on the sidewalk. “We’re here an hour early and there’s, like, fifty people in front of us.” He shades his eyes from the sun and rises up on his toes, surveying the line in front of us.

“The lines for these things always move fast,” I assure him, looking at the people around us and trying to get a sense of the competition.

“How do you know?”

“I read it somewhere,” I lie. Grant is one of those people who gets super impatient and cranky. If he thinks we’re going to be here for a while, he might decide to take off, and I really don’t want to wait by myself. I’m not the best at doing things alone—I always have to have someone with me. Like when I got my license, I had to take my brother Brian with me. And when my wisdom teeth came out, I made my boyfriend Corey skip his basketball practice and stay in the waiting room, even though the dental hygienist, Brandi, assured me that I would be okay to drive home on my own. Like I was really going to—everyone knows girls whose names end in “i” can’t be trusted. Last year, for example, Kristi McConnell was always trying to get in my boyfriend’s pants—she went by “Kristina” right up until the seventh grade, when she became “Kristi with an i” and lost all sexual integrity, i.e., the ability to stay away from other people’s boyfriends.

“It’s fucking hot,” Grant says, taking a swig from the water bottle he’s holding. “I thought Syracuse was supposed to be the snow capital of the world or some shit.”