Wow. Three press conferences over the course of one week.

Or was it four? Yeah, I think it was four, which is even more amazing. Getting invited to four press conferences in a week is like having two birthdays, Christmas and a honeymoon in the span of seven days.

If you know what I mean. Wink, wink.

They’re like parties. I always feel bad for non-press people because they have no idea the fun we have at those things. Somebody always brings a cake and some muffins. Enough for everybody. There’s usually a keg off in the corner, but we don’t use those big red cups because that would just be too obvious on camera.

Someone usually digs a couple horseshoe pits right there in the police station lobby and we get in a few games before the suits show up. There’s face painting, a guess-your-weight booth and occasionally a dunk tank. We hold hands and sing songs, and if Harry from Channel 8 is in a good mood, we can usually get him to tell us a scary story ’round the fire.

It’s great fun. You people with normal jobs have no idea.

OK, maybe not. When it comes to a press conference, what you see is what you get. The people in suits – some of them have to go out and buy suits specifically for the press conference – stand at the front of the room with arms crossed. The rest of us grovel before them, waiting for news like hungry men waiting for scraps of food. Only, instead of tasty morsels, the suited people toss out bits of information that the rest of us will gobble like wild dogs and then insist that it isn’t enough.

Here’s how a press conference works.

If you’re a reporter of any value, you’ve been working day and night, trying to solve on your own the vicious double murder. Or the serial killings or the arson spree. You’ve worked your sources. You’ve hung out in bars trying to overhear bits of conversation. You’ve alienated your wife, your children and your dog, ignoring everything except the case at hand and the meager clues you have developed.

Then some fool calls a press conference to announce resolution of the case and it occurs to you that you could have spent all those desperate hours playing Frisbee or learning to play the harmonica.

The TV people always show up a half-hour early to the gathering. They need to set up those giant dish things and string their wires. As a print reporter, you know this. And yet, the fact that the TV guys are there before you stirs your competitive spirit and your paranoia. Will there be extra credit for punctuality? Are those TV weasels in there right now with the chief of police, playing cribbage and smoking cigars? Are they laughing at you, the lowly print reporter, because you showed up late and missed all the good stuff?

If you’re a reporter of any value, that paranoia will get the better of you and make you arrive early, as well. You don’t WANT to arrive early, because by doing so, you seem desperate and unprepared. Plus, you have to make small talk with the other reporters, which isn’t always easy.

“That’s some camera you got there. What is she, a Sony?”

“Yes, thank you. And I enjoy that thing you do for the newspaper. Recipes, is it? An advice column or something like that?”

“Yes, thank you. And I always enjoy how you let us all know when it’s snowing by going out to the street during a snowstorm and filming it.”

Uncomfortable silence.

“Seriously, there are still newspapers? Are you even going to have a job next week?”

You somehow manage to unplug the TV guy’s microphone, but it was totally an accident.

Then the suits walk into the room. They arrive all at once, looking grim and serious, as if they’re all just getting back from a funeral. They stand in front of the room with (have I mentioned this?) arms crossed and those somber expressions only becoming more intense. One of them will step up to the podium, face almost lost behind the garden of microphones planted there. TV guys aim their impressive cameras. At least one print guy will aim a less-impressively-sized hand-held camera because we’re streaming this live, bitches! How you like me now?

The reporters wait, tense and hungry for the facts. They’ll have to wait longer. By national law, the suits have to begin every press conference by thanking each other before getting down to the meat of the sad story.

“First and foremost,” one of them will say, “the police department would like to thank the fire department. And the fire department would like us to pass along thanks to the ATF and the MDEA. The MDEA doesn’t wish to thank anyone verbally, but if you look around, you will see burly, bearded agents nodding solemnly at the FBI. The FBI can’t thank anyone because they’re not here. As far as you know. Now, let’s get started . . .”

Lewiston police Chief Michael Bussiere led the press conferences last week and that sped things up. The chief gives good conferences. He gets right to the nuts and bolts of things and speaks in a clear and compelling way. It always feels like the start of a crime novel.

“At 4 p.m. this afternoon, under a hazy Lewiston sky, a pair of suspects was arrested in the string of fires that instilled fear and dread in the hearts of all of us. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.”

Actually, during the many, many press conferences last week, almost everybody spoke with passion. The fire marshal himself got up there Friday night and stopped just short of banging his fist on the podium. It was very rousing. Every reporter in the joint leaned toward the front of the room, tense, as though they were waiting for the results of a pregnancy test rather than just work stuff. Microphones clipped to the podium crept a little higher, like exotic flowers reaching for the sun.

Even so, there’s always that one smug reporter who just sits through the whole thing nodding and yawning. When others start asking questions, he rolls his eyes all bored and condescending. He does so because he wants other reporters to think he knew this stuff all along. Press conference? He don’t need no stinking press conference. He’s only here for the free face-painting action.

Total faker, that guy.

I won’t lie to you. That guy is usually me.

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