Welcome to a very special and first time bonus track of Fit to Be Real and a little extra.
We just launched Carmella's episode number seven of all of the stories of meeting our
mom and guess what, believe it or not, there were more that we could not include.
So here they are.
Get excited.
This first one was something that Carly had asked and it's, if you go to Carmella's
dance studio, the shoes that she wore for this experience are hanging in Springfield,
Pennsylvania.
It'll make more sense when you listen to it.
But here it is.
And we're not going to ask you to tell this story, but I am just going to name drop a
little bit one more time.
She was John Travolta's rehearsal partner for Saturday Night Fever.
So she was not the dancer in the movie, but she rehearsed with John Travolta.
I helped him learn disco because I was taking private disco lessons and the teacher said,
will you stay and be this guy's partner? I said, sure.
In Walk John Travolta.
I saw I did it for about five or six times while he learned disco.
Yeah, but then he asked you to do something.
To be a backup dancer in his Caribbean tour that summer.
So why did she say no?
I didn't.
I auditioned.
Oh.
I auditioned.
The director, he told the director to look for me.
I went to the dance, the dance audition.
They kept four guys, all John Travolta's height, six feet tall, and four girls who were all
five, 10 and me.
She's five, three.
And I'm five, three, but I had five inch lifts on my character shoes at the time.
And between that and my fro, I was as tall as the girls and I had a big fro.
So they got down to five girls and four men.
And they said, Carmella, take your shoes off.
And I was like, no, please, please, no.
I'll dance in these shoes.
I've danced the whole audition.
And they told me, and so I got cut because I was too short.
And didn't Bob Fawcett save the same thing?
No.
Yes.
Bob Fawcett cut me.
I was down to the final 10 for some show that Bob Fawcett was doing.
And then he looked all 10 dancers who walked past us and he would look you up and down
and up and down.
And I was by far the shortest one in the line and he loves long legs.
So I got cut.
Yes.
Story time.
Well, that's the story you weren't going to tell, right?
Yeah.
Go, go, go, go.
The story I said we're not going to tell.
I'm just going to.
That's good.
So it's interesting that you say that and I'm glad that you did because if you are continuously
listening to us, then you heard us talk about those cattle calls and how there's so much
that gets deep rooted into being looked up and down and then looked at and said, no.
So hopefully things shift and change and people maybe get a little bit thicker skin or whatever
it is, but it's always been like that.
Women, excuse me, I just went to a show recently and I can't remember what show it was, but
the ensemble dancers were all different body types.
They weren't all the same tall, skinny looking people.
They were all different kinds of shapes and sizes.
And I noticed that.
Yeah.
2023.
We are getting better.
That's awesome.
Yep.
I think it's thanks to Lizzo and J.Lo.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm not all a million other.
Yeah, a million.
Those are the ones that came to my head.
It's because of them, I feel like that things are turning.
Well, guess what?
Debbie Allen was the one who brought shortness in and acceptability and acceptable higher
because she's five three.
And until Debbie Allen came, it all had to be five eight.
And then she came and it was like, what?
Short?
Are you kidding me?
I was too late for me.
Clearly she was very passionate about her height.
But yeah, that's a true story.
She's been I've heard that John Travolta story since I was little, many times.
And she tells it almost the same, sometimes different every time.
Well, it was real.
It was real.
So is this next story, believe it or not, unfortunately.
Yes, it's very easy to be like, oh, my gosh, there's no way.
This is real.
You own a business.
We're raised children, but it is real.
And I think it's just a testament to her convictions and her passion, passion for eggs.
For eggs and anything she truly believes is real.
All right, so we are going to cut this off.
It could go on forever.
Cut this off with one of the ever famous Carmella stories, which there are many, there are many.
You could actually write a memoir.
You should in all your free time.
But we're going to leave you with this one that just gives a little bit more because
we haven't given you enough insight on how things are around here.
And it's the egg story.
It's the egg story.
A lot of people know this one, but for those of you that don't just buckle up.
So it was Easter.
And you had bought a couple dozen.
Two dozen eggs.
And we die eggs.
That was a tradition.
You hard boil eggs and you die the eggs and then you give one out to every single person
in the family.
People would go home with like four and five died eggs.
You'd have to eat them.
So we did.
I remember doing it.
I remember dying the eggs and you took a carton out.
We died them end of story.
So then what?
Well, I got confused.
So then you put them back in the refrigerator and they're done and they look horrible.
They look really bad.
Brown and try to be tied up.
Every color.
And then you went to make breakfast the next day or whatever day it was, you went to make
breakfast and crack some eggs and they were hard boiled.
And you got angry, angry about this.
And you were like, I'm so confused.
Why?
Why would Choprite sell me hard boiled eggs?
Why would that?
Why would they?
I didn't see a sign for that.
And you took yourself to the store.
Yes.
These were white eggs.
These were undied eggs.
Yeah.
So they were hard boiled and I bought them hard boiled.
And so I brought it back to the lady and I said, I bought a dozen of hard boiled eggs.
And she's like, well, that's kind of impossible.
I said, look at these eggs.
She said, you must have boiled them.
I said, I did not.
The boiled eggs are the ones that we died.
The ones that I boiled are the ones that.
So she sold me it.
So she took them back and I got a dozen of eggs and I brought them home.
And then on Easter, the gifted eggs that you give got cracked.
And they were not actually hard boiled eggs.
We boiled the wrong dozen.
No, we died the wrong dozen.
I mean, we died the wrong dozen.
And we gave out actual eggs.
And the store, gosh, they actually took those eggs, took them back.
And you were so convincing that you were like, Shop Right, you sold me hard boiled eggs.
How could you do that?
Damn you.
Who does that?
And guess what?
I got strange looks for the rest of strush.
Every time I walked into Shop Right, it was, there's the lady that brought back the hard
boiled.
That was when we were little.
It's happened again in a lot of different ways.
I remember in the past year or so, you trying and desperately trying to return genes to
Coles and then discovering you actually got them at Macy's.
So this is a trend.
She did that with a microwave.
She tried to take it back to Coles and it was from, yeah, probably Macy's or something
somewhere else.
But it was the point of the story is she's very convincing.
And when she wants something done, she will get it done.
Whether it's real or not.
Whether it's true.
Whether it makes sense.
No, but I believe it.
Oh, okay.
All right.
And if Carmella believes it, it must be real.
Welcome to our childhood, everyone.
But yeah, that egg story happened.
There's a genes story that goes with Coles and Macy's.
It's very similar.
Yeah, there's a losing your skirt story.
I mean, there's so many.
We could go on for days, honestly.
She should get her own podcast.
Well, those were our bonus tracks, our bonus stories.
There's many where that came from.
We hope you have enjoyed this and laughed along with us.
Yes.
And remember, you're always fit to be real or at least what Carmella believes to be real.
And you're always allowed to be as extra as Carmella.