The Slice: Nothing to hide, except scantily clad actresses

Remodeling at the S-R has helped me better understand the plight of the working man.

Temporarily exiled to a desk smack dab in the middle of the newsroom, I now know what it’s like to suffer the indignity of everybody and his brother being able to see what’s displayed on my computer monitor.

Not that I have anything to hide.

But because my usual work station is isolated in a corner, I am accustomed to a modicum of privacy. So, normally, if I want to check the spelling of “Tumak” or “Loana” and happen to wind up with a photo of a hardly dressed Raquel Welch on my screen, I need not concern myself with gawping over my shoulder or feel the need to declare that I am studying the movie “One Million Years B.C.” for legitimate business purposes.

Or let’s say I was drafting a blog post about my in-laws having once lived next to Stella Stevens. At my usual digs, I wouldn’t give it a second thought if a Google image search popped up a 50-year-old picture of the actress leaning over and tumbling out of her blouse.

It’s called research, folks.

Anyway, this temporary relocation has left me with a heightened appreciation of what long-suffering center-of-the-room people endure all the time. Such, uh, exposure must make one self-conscious.

Now admittedly, not everyone has a job that might involve cobbling together a birthday salute to Adrienne Barbeau. But I’m guessing you don’t have to be scoping out scenes from “Maude” or “Swamp Thing” to look bad in the eyes of visual eavesdroppers.

Warm-up question: If you were assigned the task of revising the board game Monopoly to feature Inland Northwest place names and Spokane-inspired game pieces, what would be your first move? (After replacing the Scottie dog with a pit bull, that is.)

Today’s Slice question: Ever leave home at the start of your day with a randomly selected amount of money and have it turn out to be exactly how much you needed for your various errands and purchases – down to the last dollar?

(Yes, I recognize that many lead virtually cashless lives. So those readers who use a debit card to purchase a pack of gum are invited to sit quietly while others answer the question.)