So I spent an hour of my life trapped in the lobby of a building today with eight journalists, waiting for the latest development in a corruption scandal rocking a certain city I cover.

The nine of us were like something out of the friggin' Breakfast Club. There was the plastic female television personality with makeup so thick I do believe it was tattooed onto her face--and a cell phone glued to her ear. Then there was veteran TV reporter who knows every cat in town, including the building handymen. He sat off in the dark corner making notes.

Then there was the talk radio guy: an amiable yet disjointed -looking fellow with messy, speckled gray hair, hiking boots and a ski jacket. He clutched his mic and minidisc recorder. He was in constant animated conversation with the print guy from the region's biggest paper--who was almost a carbon copy of the talk radio guy except distinctly less amiable and palpably arrogant.

There was the dorky yet oddly attractive AP guy wearing what resembled an Academy uniform (your classic khakis and buttoned polo plus tie). He had pencils and pads of paper sticking out of every pocket on his person.

And lastly, there were the three photogs. One still photog, a huge man, a veteran of either Vietnam or the Gulf. One middle-aged soccer mom type with a huge rock on her ring finger. One youngish guy who couldn't sit still to save his life.

And then there was me, bundled like a snowman in my down comforter jacket, which incidently, is turning out to be the best purchase I have ever made.

It wasn't really a surprising cast of characters. A grouping any journalist would expect to encounter in any municipality. We were in that journalist limbo, where all one can do is wait for the story to unfold.

I knew we were a special bunch when one of us caught sight of a drug bust going down across the street. Some poor bastard tried to sell to an undercover cop on one of the city's toughest streets. The young camera guy disappeared and then reappeared on the sidewalk with his camera set up to catch the action. The rest of the gang pressed their faces up against the glass of the windows in the lobby and watched the action unfold.

I swear, it was like Christmas morning in that lobby. The print guys were cheering the cops on. The plastic tv chick squealed, "it's turning into an episode of COPS up in here!" The radio guy was narrating the action. "The drug dealer is getting busted, while his partner in crime stands in front of the bodega clutching a teddy bear. The cops have seen the camera filming across the street and OH, he's pretending to film in the other direction!"

And it went on like this...and we wonder why the news is so substantive and intelligent these days...

Fortunately, the chatter later turned to the hermaphroditic cameraperson one of the television stations once employed. At last--some quality, journalistically driven conversation.

The time came when our limbo dissipated, the mayor appeared and we all went our separate ways to tell the same story in our own styles.

Just the plastic TV people, the geeky print and radio people, the jocky photogs, and the weird chick wearing the comforter.