The Knights of the Auto Order Proudly Present: The Auto Body Estimate: Vol. II, #75, August 2007

I remember the instant I decided school was a farce. We moved to a new neighborhood right before I began first grade, and I was excited to explore the new school and its “grown-up” possibilities. At some point during my first morning the teacher asked who wanted to go to the laboratory. My imagination eagerly bubbled over with images of white lab coats, test tubes, and vials of frothing liquids. When she led us to the bathroom I was extremely disappointed, and perhaps never regained my enthusiasm for institutions of learning.

I did learn to love the lav, however. I must admit that I will, on occasion, spend longer than is absolutely necessary in the smallest room in my house, often reading some magazine I’ve already read several times before. My excuse? It’s quiet, and people rarely bother me there. Because I sometime take much longer than Becca anticipates, she accuses me of bathroom snoozing, and continues to refer to me as a crapper napper.

While I’m not guilty of crapper napping at work, it’s not for a want of trying. Unfortunately the only periodicals that find their way into our men’s room don’t capture my interest. Call it a lack of imagination on my part, but I’m not captivated by titles like Information Security, PC Magazine, Information Week, Network World, nor the scintillating Windows IT Pro. As I recently pondered these titles, I assumed they were left there by our network administrator, and figured him to be a serious crapper napper. The more I cogitated on this, I began to feel sorry for him.

Few things in life are more private than that which is done in the smallest room of the building (by now you’ve realized I’m not talking about the closet). I believe if you’re going to be a crapper napper, you should read something fun – for YOU, not dry, work-related periodicals. Enjoy short fiction or cartoons in the New Yorker, travel the world in National Geographic, ogle autos, or whatever, but don’t spend YOUR time learning about Oracle’s lack of grid support, speedy wireless LAN, IPv6, MOSS server farms, or anything to do with Linux. How sad!

The more I thought about it (this is the room for contemplation), I realized that I KNOW our IT guy. He’s got a well-developed sense of humor and fun – he was so jazzed when he learned our office space was the former home of Mystery Science Theater 3000 – this can’t be his idea of enjoyment! And that’s when it dawned on me – it’s another hideous conspiracy!

Imagine you’re an employer concerned about employee productivity, and it comes to your attention that your workers are spending longer in the loo than they should. If you confront them on it, you’ll only create ill-will and become the butt of their jokes. If you were clever (or insidious) you might simply remove any interesting reading material and replace it with the most boring, work-related text possible. This will either eliminate the reading or increase the technical competency of your staff. Pure genius.

However, management wouldn’t do this themselves – you don’t climb the corporate ladder sneaking magazines into bathrooms (if that’s your idea of fun you clearly go into politics)! Clearly management hired someone to do this, and it would seem likely that the lowest bidder would be an outfit who, in an effort to reduce costs, would service many companies in the same manner. What a great idea for a covert business!

It was at this point in my conjecture when a coworker woke me up and informed me that my boss was looking for me -- again. Perhaps I’ll have an unexpected opportunity to create to start my own lavatory reading material distribution business very soon!

In the meantime, Kent, Mr. Twiss, and I will play three or four Auto Body Experience songs at the State Fair on Sunday, September 2. We’ll be a the Minnesota Public Radio Booth (on the corner of Judson & Nelson) along with Adam Granger and Morning Show host Dale Connelly, between 1:00 and 2:30 PM.

On Friday, September 14 the entire Auto Body Experience will return to the Eagles club (2507 E 25th Street, Minneapolis -- 612-729-4469) to celebrate Yohopalooza, an event celebrating the fact that Erik’s birthday, my birthday, Becca’s birthday (observed) and our anniversary all occur within four days.

For the sympathetic among you, both venues come equipped with a WC – but I’d suggest bringing your own reading materials.

Love, Scott Yoho, Grand Pooh Bah, Knights of the Auto Order

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