“Vanessa, we’re never gonna get through! Let’s just hang up and go to bed, it’s 10:45.”
My cousin Vanessa was on the home phone and I was on her cell phone. We were trying to get through to our one and only favorite lovable DJ JoJo Wright from 102.7 KIIS FM. See he was sending the first 50 callers to extras on the new Backstreet Boys video ‘I want it that way’ whoever got through would be able to take one person and if I got through of course I would take her and vice verse. We both knew how wonderfully popular the Backstreet Boys were even though we had only began to like them about 3 months earlier. (The date right now is March 31 1999 the next day happened to be April Fools Day) We didn’t know much about the fellas except they were wonderful singers and a few other obvious facts. Like their names and birthdays how old each one was, and I knew for sure that AJ McLean was the absolute most beautifully sexy man that I had ever laid eyes on. His husky voice made me melt every time I heard him sing his part on ‘All I have to give’. As far as Vanessa went you didn’t have to ask her twice who her favorite Backstreet Boy is. Nick Carter of course. With his beautiful glossy blond hair that bounced around when he danced and not to mention those haunting baby blues and his sheepish grin, she just couldn’t help but to think about him every other hour of the day.
“Alright”, she said “Just let me try one more time.” I watched as she dialed the phone number then put the phone to her ear. I watch as her eyes widened as she whispered “It’s ringing…” It rings then goes busy a lot of times but somehow this time felt different. All of a sudden her eyes opened even wider and she jumped off the bed and said in a rushed voice “Um yeah can I be in the Backstreet Boys video” They asked her if she was over 16 (one of the rules) she was 19, I was 18. Then they put her on hold. She had to be on hold for at least an hour before they got back on the phone and asked her name and phone number and told her they’d call her back to give her the ‘secret location’. We sat there screaming (into pillows of course it was around 11:30 p.m. by then). About 30 minutes later we got discouraged thinking they must have had too many people and weren’t gonna call her back when the phone rang. It was the girl calling to give the location and directions! WE WERE IN!!! She told us that when we got close we would see signs that said Mr. Pink’s and had arrows pointing which way to go. She told us to make signs for the Backstreet Boys and told us to have a good time.
We were up until 1:00 am making our sign which read in swirly letters ‘BSB makes me want to Get Down’ and we were about to go to bed when to phone rang again. Vanessa answered it. It was JoJo Wright himself!
“Hi this is JoJo Wright is Vanessa there?”
“Yes this is her, ”Vanessa said.
“Vanessa I’m sorry but we need your last name for our list.” JoJo said. She told him her last name and we breathed a sigh of relief. Now we just had one more little problem…
HOW THE HELL WERE WE GONNA SLEEP WHEN WE WERE GONNA MEET THE BACKSTREET BOYS TOMORROW!?! (we found that we didn’t have much trouble after all!)