Disclaimer: In order to write this column, I was required to offer a one-sentence apology for the cartoon of myself wearing a Cupid’s outfit from last week’s column. Said cartoon featured a flagrant artist rendering of my nipples. I am deeply sorry that this unintentional pen malfunction offended anyone, particularly the children. Oh, won’t somebody please think of the children?

Here’s my confession: I never actually saw the now-infamous Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake halftime tit-for-tat. The truth is that I long ago grew tired of that overexposed spectacle of excess and crudeness. So, I watched the Lingerie Bowl instead.

It was arguably the greatest Lingerie Bowl of all time. Nikki Ziering’s Team Dream defeated Angie Everhart’s Team Euphoria 6-0 in a defensive slugfest that came down to the last play. It was a day of redemption for Ms. Ziering, who is so starved for fame that she won’t even give up her last name, even though she divorced Ian Ziering of “90210” fame several years ago, lest she lose that invaluable name recognition that comes with being a Ziering.

Unaware of the titillation that occurred in my absence, I flipped back to the Super Bowl and enjoyed the rest of the game. Apparently, the American people were much more on the ball. In less than a week, the Federal Communication Commission received more than 200,000 complaints. According to The Associated Press, the 200,000-plus complaints set a new record for the FCC.

I know what you are thinking: More than 200,000 people have to get lives.

Which leads me to another confession — I apparently was one of them. Here is the actual e-mail that I sent the FCC.

Dear FCC,

I am writing you to tell you that I am vehemently against an investigation into what occurred during the Super Bowl halftime show. Please do not waste my tax dollars on an absurd overreaction when it could be spent on something essential like more tax cuts for trillionaires or a space mission to the sun. I find it astonishing that it took a day to launch an investigation into something this trivial, when it took nearly a year for our president to create a commission to find out why we went to war based on faulty intelligence and lost more than 500 people. The only thing your inquiry will prove is that Justin Timberlake is a tool and Janet Jackson is a whore. I already knew that. It’s stuff like this that makes me want to burn buildings down.

Yours,

Casey Toner

All right, I didn’t write that last sentence and I didn’t sign it Casey Toner, but the rest is word-for-word what I sent the FCC. In a rare display of governmental efficiency, I received a response in less than 24 hours. It came in the form of a form letter that greatly heartened me by revealing that they too “shared my concern about this outrageous stunt.”

Now, I didn’t actually expect them to read my letter, but I also didn’t expect them to not read it and assume that I agreed with them. This led me to wonder whether I was alone in getting the shaft. With a little message-board surfing, I found several others who were victims of the FCC’s arrogance and received the same form letter. However, I could not find anyone who would ‘fess up to complaining.

I then developed a theory: More than 200,000 people wrote to the FCC to say, “Hell, yeah. Janet Jackson’s breasts were awesome. Don’t you dare go investigating.” The FCC’s scanner picked out the words “Janet,” “Jackson’s,” “breasts,” “awesome” and “investigating” and, therefore, categorized it as a complaint. Of course, I can’t prove that, but they can’t disprove it either.