Yer Cheatin' Part

It came to light the way many dalliances do these days: Facebook. Someone attached my name to a photograph, I saw it and noticed it wasn't me. Well, that's a lie. Truth is i took one look at that photo and froze - for there was my baby in the arms of another. I...I knew it was possible. After all, I've been working short weeks lately. Perhaps I've even been a little inattentive. But to see some young punk poke my honey in a homeless woman's tent; well, it's just about more than this cameraman can stand.

Understand, we've been through a lot. Hurricanes, Hollywood, homicides. I've dragged her chassis through blizzards, floodzones and a couple of Southern jungles. I've pushed per past security, into the face of felons and through a burned-out window or two. Together we've scrambled down ditchbanks, run up training tower stairwells, even loitered just beyond the body-drop. Through it all, we bonded like only a fool and his tool could. I've fondled her in cockpits, took her on a submarine once and banged her into more doorjambs than either of us care to admit. Once we were following a bunch of Boy Scouts through their campsite. I twisted my ankle on a not so steady stepping stone and sprawled ass over kettle. She slipped from my grip that day and we lay there together in the mid morning dew laughing at our misfortune... And now this.

Some would say I'm overreacting. They'd point to the many shops where gear is shared among many; like some weirdo religious sect. They'd remind me that fancycam is no -more mine than Boris Yeltsin's (which is a odd-ass reference, by the way). But no matter what exhortations they picked, for logic has no power over the broken-hearted. So put a sock in it, Dear Abbies, for the truly jilted have no time for platitudes. I just want things back the way they were, before high school football kicked me to the curb every Friday night and lesser lenslingers tickled and pawed my soulmate. Hey, I realize it's gonna happen. I can't be on call all the time; there's goona be a day when another man whisks her away on his own beefy shoulders. But we're going to have to have a frank discussion, Sony and I. Otherwise, I'll never be able to look straight and true through her lovely lens again...

Which could really make shooting news a bitch.