Last week, one of our admirable ferry workers was photographed creatively expressing his irritation using a breakfast food. I have to say I’ve wanted to do that myself for years. Fortunately, I’ve never done it in front of a spy camera, but before I say more about spy cameras, I’d like to say that the ferry worker in question has always impressed me as being courteous and adept at his job. Because he apologized on his own, I say we rally around him and give him a second chance. Folks who admit freely their mistakes and apologize, as he reportedly did, deserve our support. He also really knows how to load a ferry boat, and I would miss his expertise.

What I’m not so sure deserves our support is the pervasiveness of high-tech imaging instruments in our society. Cameras are everywhere now, keeping track of our bank transactions, our driving skills and whatever else anyone wants to record with their cell phone. I for one am tired of being photographed, and not just because I’m not as photogenic as I once was. And unless you’re a member of Congress, I’m betting you won’t want your constituents to see pictures of those bits of you that usually don’t get sunburned. You can believe me when I say that we don’t want to see them either.

Let’s face it, we all have done many things we’d not want photographed and broadcast on the evening news. My life (especially, it seems to me) has been full of embarrassing moments. For example, when I was in seventh grade I spilled an entire carton of chocolate milk down my pants. My mother could not get there soon with a clean pair, so I spent most of the day walking around Frankenstein-like and smelling of sour milk. In eighth grade, I tripped over my shoelaces while trying to catch the attention of Jenny Winkle, on whom I had a serious crush. In ninth grade, I accidentally showered my biology lab partner (a girl) with formaldehyde while dissecting a frog. In 10th grade … Well, you get the picture.  

If I were to do any of these things now, people would ask what I was doing in a middle school at my age. If there were photos of it, lawyers would converge around me like mosquitoes around a naked man (which is a pretty apt analogy, don’t you think?). I’m guessing that with all these cameras recording everyday upsets, there are more than a few opportunities to clog the courts with suits of the type that my parents would have thought ridiculous. And many of them are on the evening news.  

So I say it’s time to turn off the danged cameras and get back to living life the way God intended, where you can sit around in your shorts, get your kids to clean their rooms and make a fool of yourself after hours without risking public humiliation. In short, do stuff your parents would have done, such as: 1) shop only in a “brick and mortar” store; 2) read a book printed on actual paper; better yet, check one out of the library; 3) write a letter and mail it to someone using stamps you have to lick; and 4) tonight after dinner, instead of watching TV or chatting on the computer, sit outside and discuss the events of the day with your family while having a beer (or like my ancestors, several beers). While you’re doing that, snap a picture of yourself with your cell phone and post it on Facebook. Your friends will “like” you, at least this time, and with luck they’ll stop by tomorrow evening for a beer, wearing their shorts. Keep the mosquito repellent handy just in case.

— Greg Wessel is a writer, geologist and artist on Vashon.