She says …

Scene: March 2003, the streets of downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba. Me amid a huge lineup of Canadian Idol hopefuls anxiously awaiting to audition for Season 1 (yes, I auditioned for that).

For those of you who don’t know Manitoba in March, it’s cold – damn cold, like -10C cold. And since the lineup started to build around 2pm the afternoon, my friend and I were tasked with spending the night outside in order to secure our place at auditions the next morning.

Wouldn’t recommend it.

After something like 19 hours in the cold March air, we finally got into the building and headed directly to the washroom to freshen up (and warm up!). As you can imagine, there was another huge lineup there too. So, instead of waiting in line with my friend, I decided to go warm up and come back later.

(Yes, this is a bathroom story.)

When I returned to the washroom a while later, as if by magic, there was no line. (Happy dance!) There was also no one in the washroom. Naturally, I just mozied into one of the stalls, and while I’m doing my thing, I hear urgent footsteps, a stall door fling open wildly and then shut. Whatever, right?

After, as I’m washing my hands, that same stall door flings open again, this time a little less wildly, and out she walks, the radiant, fabulous rock goddess Sass Jordan, aka Canada’s Queen of Rock, who was there as one of the show’s judges.

As I’m staring at the shiny unicorn, likely with my mouth hanging open (because, dear god, here she was- my idol! )she walks up to the sink, turns on the water and opens her mouth to speak:

“Fuck, I had to piss!”

It was perfection.

She laughed. I laughed. She left. And that was that.

Turns out, I had just made it into the washroom before they roped it off for Ms. Jordan. I wasn’t as lucky when it came to auditions; I didn’t make the cut. I did, however, see Sass one last time while belting my face off to Aretha’s “Natural Woman” at my audition, after which she referred to me as “the girl with the pipes” - so that’s one for the books.

Cue teachable moment: Even though judge Jake Gold didn’t agree with Ms. Jordan’s assessment of the “girl with the pipes” (she wanted to move me on in the competition, he didn’t), he did give me some valuable insight: I wasn’t being “Jill enough,” “too much Christina Aguilera,” and I was to “come back when I found my sound.”

It took me a good long while to get what he meant. Now, I get it. And it was the best advice I’ve ever received.

PSST … GUESS WHAT?! I recently had a chance to chat with Sass on my vodcast. You can watch it below!