All in One

When I was a kid the Long Island Star Journal came to our house everyday. In it I distinctly remember a one panel cartoon, The Strange World of Mr. Mum. It had no caption or speech bubbles, but was purely funny by what it was showing, juxtaposing something, or imagining things as they might be.

I used to clip some of these cartoons out and save them. Goodness knows where they are now, but one in particular always stuck in my mind. It showed Mr. Mum at the post office standing in front on the slots that allowed you to pre-sort your mail for the postal people. In that era there were slots for Zone such-and-such only, Other Local Zones, Out-of-Town, Air Mail, Special Delivery, and Foreign.

The cartoon was drawn as a bit of a cross section that let you see Mr. Mum pushing his letter through the slot he chose and seeing where it went on the other side. One cardboard box on the floor was set up to catch all the letters. So, no matter what sorting you did, it was undone by going only one place. Talk about a strong union.

Many, many things in life have made me think of this cartoon. The most recent occurred when I was working only slightly late and the cleaning lady came by to empty the waste baskets. We attempt to be a "green" office and have one waste basket for white paper only, and the other basket for everything else. Usually I have only the white paper basket ready to hand her because I use a white pad of paper and do not eat in the office.

But lately I've been using a yellow pad of paper, so I've had white and yellow paper. I still chuckle when I separate the two into separate baskets. Is this really going to matter?

By now you might have guessed what was next. Out of the corner of my right eye I saw that she was emptying both baskets into the one large basket that she was pushing around. She was not being negligent. After laughing hysterically to myself I asked her about her use of only the one basket. She told me they never told her to separate the paper, and gave her no means to keep it separate.

I swore I would tell no one. Mum's the word.

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