Dear Madam...

I'd like a chance to explain why your frowning mug made it on the news tonight. God told me to put it there. But don't blame Him. Blame You. See, when I wandered into that classroom you were sitting in this morning, I was just looking for a few quick cutaways. You know: shots of pencils penciling, teachers teaching, students acting like they had some sense. The kind of thing you might see on TV. Tee-Vee ... that glowing box in the corner of your den that tries to sell you dishwashing liquid and virility pills. You've seen it, right? If you had, you'd probably know that those flickering images don't get there by themselves. No, there acquired and assembled daily by lowly souls like me, individuals who quickly decide they've seen it all - long before they actually have. I myself have pointed cameras at shackled crackheads, celebrities with one name, morons with white sheets over their head and a flatulent world leader or two. But few have reacted like you.

From the moment I followed the instructor into that classroom, you made your presence known. The huffing, the puffing, the oddly audible eye-rolling - it was quite a performance. Granted you have every right to act that way - and there's no law saying you have to be on television. But the tact you took to escape my gaze had all the subtly of a sweaty wrestler swearing vengeance on a costumed foe. Between the stink-eye and the hyperventilation, I considered for a moment digging my cell phone off my belt and dialing 911. Instead, I tried to ignore you - with the quiet knowledge that before I left that small room I would commit your image to video - something I had zero interestin until you began acting like that hopped-up 'tween from The Exorcist. I would have stuck around longer, but I don't look good in green pea soup.

There were other people in that room who didn't want to be televised. So they hunkered down a bit and hid in plain view. Not you. Apparently, you thought I was a cyborg bent on destroying the community college system class by class - or perhaps you figured I was lead sentry for those death panels you've heard so much about. Maybe you simply assumed I was out to steal your soul. Either way, you flailed about there in your undersized seat, hissing in a twangy stage-whisper like a pissed-off Minne Pearl. Soooo, I pretended to tie my shoe, drawing your attention away from my camera. I had no choice - for defying a photog to take your picture is like hurling a Molotov cocktail through a fire house window and expecting the guys in Nomex pants to ignore it. Consider it a code we photogs live by - much your like habit of draping that amorphous torso in NASCAR garb. Besides, we both know you wanted to be on camera. So enjoy the cameo, for while it's your mullet filling the screen...

...this close-up is on me.