In order to be a true classic Sherlockian, one must be prepared to occasionally start a Sherlock Holmes club at the drop of a deerstalker hat. It’s our way of tying our friends to us all the tighter, in the grand old tradition of Holmes asking Dr. Watson to share rooms. While most of us don’t want room-mates, we do have plenty of other things to share, like the Hansom Cab Clock Club that started on this very site as a connection point for Sherlockians with Sears catalog hansom cab clocks from the sixties. We don’t have meetings, or dues, or rules . . . other than having a hansom cab clock . . . but still, it’s always good to know our brethren our out there.

With all that in mind, I have decided that it’s time to renew my classic Sherlockian dues and start one more club. This, however, is going to be a secret society, whose membership will never be revealed for reasons that are about to quickly become apparent. For even though I’m starting this club, I myself have to publicly admit that I’m not a member of it just so I can still afford to keep this website running!

Are you a potential member of this new secret society? Well, you just have to ask yourself one question. It’s Monday morning. You’ve made it in to work . . . almost on time. You get your caffeinated beverage of choice and groggily plop down at your desk in front of your computer monitor. Elsewhere in the office, people are chatting about their weekends, mixing up bowls of instant oatmeal, and sundry non-productive Monday morning things. Do you take a moment before settled down to a hard day’s work to check out some little web entertainment like Action Sherlock Brain Theater?

It doesn’t have to be first thing. Maybe you needed a break mid-morning. Maybe you were a good employee and waited until you were eating lunch at your desk. But the crux of it was, you stopped to look at Action Sherlock Brain Theater while at work. And that qualifies you to be a member of the Action Sherlock Jack-in-office Society!

Our patron saint, of course, Sherlock Holmes, as who can forget that wonderful conversation from “Speckled Band” in which Grimesby Roylott comes to call:

You are Holmes, the meddler.”
My friend smiled.
“Holmes, the busybody!”
His smile broadened.
“Holmes, the Scotland Yard Jack-in-office!”
Holmes chuckled heartily.

Sure, you could be a meddler or busybody at work, but as Holmes demonstrates with his hearty chuckle, being a Jack-in-office is the most fun of all. You can find plenty of definitions for “Jack-in-office” on the web. Alexander Wolcott, who had some Sherlockian connections, called it “an insolent fellow in a position of authority” according to one source. Another site says it’s “a self-important minor official” (and a derogatory Briticism at that).  Personally, I’d define it as “a fellow who does jack while in the office.” (Can you just make up any definition you like for a word, you might ask? Well, I just did, didn’t I? I’m the Snoop Dogg of Sherlockian culture!)

However you define it, the Jack-in-office is a funny concept, amusing to Holmes and myself as well. And if you’re insolent enough to read a web-comic at your work post, or self-important enough to think you can get away with it, or if you’re just doing jack while in office . . . well, knight yourself as an Action Sherlock Jack-in-office!

But here’s the thing . . . it’s a secret society, remember? All the members want to keep their jobs and not produce any evidence that they might have taken a few seconds out of their time in the office to look at Action Sherlock. So now we get to the secret part. The Action Sherlock Jack-in-office Society doesn’t have decoder rings as yet, or a secret handshake, but they do have secret code names. How do you come up with your code name?

Well, we’re using the method favored by secret Holmes agents of the highest level: taking a three-letter first syllable and adding the letters “lock” to the end of it, like “Porlock” did when he reported from the Moriarty mob in The Valley of Fear. It’s a fitting tribute to Sherlock, our main man, as it allows him to be the only four-letters-before-“lock”. You can grab three letters from your favorite story title and get “Suslock,” “Redlock,” or “Auglock.” You can take your three letters from your favorite object in Holmes’s office/sitting room: “Piplock,” “Saflock,” or “Tanlock.” Or you can find some other rightly Sherlockian source for them.

You can pass your new Jack-in-office code name on to any contacts you wish to have it, or remain a super-double-secret Jack-in-office and keep your code name to yourself. It’s that kind of secret society!

I may even put a web page up for the Action Sherlock Jack-in-office Society, so if you’re especially proud of your code name, or want to declare your years as a loyal Action Sherlock Jack-in-office, let me know and I’ll post it there (without any identifying bits of course that anyone could use to track you down).

That’s it . . . I hereby officially declare this club founded!

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver