I have nothing against art history. It's an important subject that should be studied and preserved. But not by me. Is that so much to ask?

I may have let my disinterest show a little too much in my high school art history class. To say I wasn't a model student is probably a bit of an understatement, but when you're stuck inside staring at slide after slide of blurry pottery from the 4th century when you could be out in the sun playing ultimate frisbee, your frustration often gets the best of you. But that does not make me a cheater, which is precisely what my art history teacher claimed me to be.

I remember the moment all too well. We were taking one of our final exams during the end of the year where my teacher Mrs. Metz would put up two slides of different art works and we were asked to compare and contrast the two. It didn't help that I had an awful cold that day and was sniffling and sneezing as I tried to scribble my thoughts in a little blue book in the middle of the darkened classroom. I kept a balled-up tissue in my hand to try to keep my exam as clean as possible.

About halfway through the test, I had the strangest sensation that I was being watched. Sure enough, when I looked up, I could see Mrs. Metz's beady eyes staring me down behind her unusually large thick rimmed glasses from across the room. I shrugged it off, and kept writing. Moments later, I glanced up again and now Mrs. Metz is loitering in the middle of the room, eyes still transfixed in my direction. I went back to work. Maybe this was all in my head... Another few moments passed and suddenly I felt her towering right over me, looking directly down at my paper. For lack of any other way to handle the situation, I pretended she wasn't there, which was no easy task, and kept working while she was literally breathing down my neck. After an uncomfortably long amount of time, she slowly leaned down, her cheap perfume cutting through the stench of the stuffy classroom, and with a stern accusing voice demanded, "Brett? Can I see what's in your hand?" I had an immediate sinking feeling in my stomach, the kind you get when you realize all hope is lost. But a second later, I realized what had happened. She thought I was cheating. I gladly opened up my hand, revealing my used crumpled tissue and looked back up at her with the biggest eyes I could make that seemed to say, "Who, me?" Defeated, Mrs. Metz scowled and returned to her perch atop the wooden stool at the other end of the classroom.

I was enraged. My teacher was sure that I had a secret cheat sheet hidden in the palm of my hand when it was only a dirty tissue. I don't even know how a cheat sheet would help with an essay test, anyway. But that was beside the point. My teacher had unfairly labeled me as the cheating type in her mind, to the point where she would see anything she wanted to prove herself right. I might not have been her favorite student; I was far from it. But for her to make the leap from uninspired student to cheater was an injustice. She had no reason to think I would do such a thing, and the fact that she didn't like me was a poor excuse to treat me that way. At least I was in the right, and in the end got the last smirk of satisfaction knowing that I had proved her wrong.