After spending hours voting for their favorite contestants on “American Idol”, the Rychalsky family is hoping they might be winners themselves by landing a world record for calls placed.
Konstantine and Helen Rychalsky and their daughters Michelle, 27, and Kristen, 25, cast so many votes for their favorite singers that they might have done just that.
It takes coordination and resilience to make that many calls, Konstantine told the Connecticut Post.
"Fatigue plays a major part, which is why we have to do it as a family. It's kind of like playing a video game, with one hand dialing and one hand hanging up, with lots of fun involved," Konstantine told the Post.
This season, they called to vote for contestants about 18,000 times. That was done in shifts for 30 hours over 14 weeks, or two hours each Tuesday and four for the final episode, the Waterbury Republican-American reports.
"It's absolutely a family effort," Konstantine’s wife Helen told the Post. "The last few seasons, especially, it's become a family get-together from the time it starts to the time it ends."
Their dedication sparked some friendly competition within the family to see how many votes they could cast on a given night.
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"Our whole family got hooked when Carrie Underwood was a contestant,” Konstantine told the Post. "That was the year we picked up the phone and made some calls. ... After the first half-hour, we said, let's keep calling, and ended up doing that for the whole four hours (the lines were open that night)."
This year, the family voted for Kris Allen, but won’t know if they qualify for a world record until they hear back from an application company that will determine if the family has reached record status.
"The whole idea behind this was that we did it as a family and had a great deal of fun," Konstantine told the Post. "We would encourage other families to do it as a family."
