Input text box, clear on click

1

I’m trying to figure out how to have an input text box instance display my message (“search by last name”) and then when a user clicks on it the text clears and the user gets a left aligned insertion point.

i was hoping to do something like this:

stop();

var LO:Object = new Object();
LO.change=function(eventObject:Object){
	itext.text="";
};
itext.addEventListener("change", LO);

but apparently that only works on instances of the textinput component and I need a custom font in there (so i have to use an input text box…right?)

any help would be appreciated.