A Little Off the Top: My 15 minutes are almost up

"Hi, this is Katie, and I'm calling from CNN. We were wondering if we could interview you about a story that we are working on.

"What is this, a joke?"

"No, I'm calling from CNN. We want to interview you."

"Look, today is deadline and layout day. I really don't have time for this."

Long pause.

"No, I really am calling from CNN. We want to interview you about a local story on the Nancy Grace show."

"I'm in no mood for for this. Seriously. You need to get a life."

More explanations followed, and then some apologies from me. Come to find out CNN really was doing a story on a Washington woman, Louie Lewis, who met a Mission man online, moved in with him, and has been missing since late January.

Turns out they wanted a local man-on-the-scene, and wanted me to be on the show that night. Unlike many people who appear on TV, I was not selected for my expertise or good looks [I'm obviously more suited for newspaper or radio work, as you can see].

They just needed a warm body to talk on TV. I can do that, I thought.

The Nancy Grace show, for those of you who don't watch much "talk TV," stars a former prosecutor with a no-nonsense personality who rehashes criminal cases and investigations taking place around the country, each night on CNN. Think of her as the Geraldo of the criminal justice system. Only there's no fistfights most nights.

The story was about Lewis' Internet romance, and the fact that her boyfriend, Dean Earl Stipe, is being held in the Missoula County jail for a probation violation, and is considered a "person of interest" in Lewis' disappearance. [For those of you keeping track at home, this is the third civil or criminal case out of Lake County to be featured on a national news show in the past two months.]

Throughout the day, several CNN producers would call me to get more information on the case. I helped them along, filling in the details. I happened to mention probation officers did a search of Stipe's house on Valentine's Day, coincidentally.

"Oh, make sure you bring that up. Nancy will love that little detail," the producer told me. "You're going to do great."

And so I was. I was going to be on CNN! We had to email them a mug shot of me in case they used it. Making sure both hairs were in place, we took the shot and fired it off to the producers.

Meanwhile, two Lake County Sheriff's detectives, Kim Leibenguth and Dan Yonkin, spent about 45 minutes filling me in on as much information as they could tell me, or as much as they could put on national television.

And with that, I counted down the minutes until my 6:30 p.m. national television debut. I had to keep reminding myself not to refer to Stipe as a "suspect," but a "person of interest."

And then the big moment came, when I messed up on national television. Here's the transcript of my performance.

Nancy: "Straight out to "Lake County Leader" editor Ethan Smith. What's the last time anyone heard from Lucille Lewis?

Me: "Well, Nancy, the last time was probably in late January. The person who`s considered a suspect, her online boyfriend — actually, I should probably use the phrase "person of interest."

Nancy: "Yes, we should. He's not an official suspect. Go ahead," she gently admonished me in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers.

Me: "Correct. He claims to have dropped her off at the airport sometime in the first couple days in February. So he is supposedly the last person to see her, although she did have contact with family members in late January. And following a few days without any contact, they became very concerned."

And with that, my national television debut, and career, came to an end. They spent the next few minutes talking to her ex-husband and family members before wrapping up for the night.

In the end, we got squeezed into a 10-minute segment after the case against the 24-year-old Florida teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old student got dropped. That case had everything Nancy could want — mainly a blonde bombshell teacher who had posed semi-nude for a motorcycle calendar — so I could understand.

Oh well. All I know is that if everyone has 15 minutes of fame in their life, I have another 14 minutes and 37 seconds coming to me.