I had talked to Megan on the phone several times before I met her, and she was extremely friendly and helpful in facilitating our story on the MTV behemoth, TRL, or Total Request Live. In person, she is just as we both expect - blonde, perky, energetic, and - ah, yes, the magic word - cool. She directs us through the narrow offices, past the billiards room (yes, home of a massive pool table) and directly to the offices of Deb Savo, the Executive Producer of TRL (see interview on page ______). Megan tells us that we have until 3:00 before the TRL taping.

We peek into a few offices. Nice-looking people, sitting in front of computers, sipping latte's over their work. Techie-looking guys that don't quite fit in, working over layouts. We pass Dave Holmes in the hall. We want to linger, and try to meet other famous people, but being dorks and thus afraid of security guards and the happenstance that Megan may find us snooping, we press the elevator button and descend.

Thalia, winner of the infamous - and never-ending - "I Wanna Be a VJ Contest" clomps by in big boots and poofy hair. She looks a lot cooler than she does on TV. I can't help thinking how huge her ego must be. But it is comforting, that she too, unlike the rest of everyone at MTV, was once one of us staring at the popular crowd at the lunch table, looking at everything from the outside.

Outside, we decide to play at being real reporters. A crowd has begun to gather below the window of the TRL studio. We zoom into two girls, fourteen or fifteen years old, with C-A-R-S-O-N written across their foreheads. So, we ask, why do you love Carson Daly?

They shriek because we look rather official with our mini-recorders.

"We love Carson because he is so hot and handsome and the show is great and all the bands. We really love Christina Aguilera and Will Smith and we are hoping hoping hoping that Mandy Moore is on the countdown and Kid Rock too and I think that TRL is the best . . ."

I run out of tape. Soman has more. A mother asks me how to get inside. I shrug. Another guy breaks away from his friends and runs up to us.

"TRL is awesome because Carson is THE MAN and the show is really cool, and its great that we get to choose the videos that they play, and man can you by any chance get me and my girlfriend up there or maybe give this to Carson for us or can we be on the show, please, man?"

A man shoves his toddler in Soman's face.

"She came all the way from Puerto Rico to see Carson! She must see Carson!"

They see us walking back through those security guards, and you can almost smell the jealousy. This time, we breeze right by the security guard. He doesn't look up. But security guard #2 doesn't remember us from an hour before. We tell him to ask Gigi. We know Gigi will recognize us. Gigi frustratedly looks us up and down, and says she's never seen us before in her life. We spout off some jargon and names and one rings a bell somewhere. She lets us back in. I am happy to return to my seat on the big purple plushy couchy thing. Enter Kelly, Miss TRL herself.

Kelly is a dead ringer for Kelly Martin. She is wearing a trendy patterned shirt and long flowy skirt. I would have never been able to talk to her in high school. But she smiles wide with her glimmering white teeth and perkily asks if we're student reporters. We nod.

We are shuffled to the front of a line of about twenty girls, who I think look to be about fifteen, all decked in fuscia tube tops, black stretchy pants, and enough hair gel to last John Stamos but a few weeks. They look old, but you can tell that they are still pubescent, if only because they are still at that blessedly skinny age where their metabolism digests fudge like mine does celery.

"We're in eighth grade," she tells me. All I can think of is that my mother would have never let me wear a tube top in eighth grade.

They are squealing now, just as they squeal when we are ushered into the studio, squeal when Carson enters, squeal when the show starts. I look over at Soman and feel sorry for him. He is one of the only guys there. He looks miserable.