The mungo men and the bomb squad
It can take a village to defuse a bomb 鈥� although in the case I鈥檓 thinking of, the bomb was on West 27th Street in Manhattan. That鈥檚 Chelsea, not the Village.
Amid the coverage of several explosive devices planted in New York and New Jersey last month, allegedly by Ahmad Khan Rahami, I was intrigued by the tale of how two 鈥渕ungo men鈥� may have inadvertently defused the bomb and led to the perpetrator鈥檚 capture.
As Michael Daly related in , 鈥淗ad the bomber chosen a simple black or solid hued wheeled suitcase, the two men who happened by might not have even noticed it....鈥澛�
Ah, but the bag in question had a truly 鈥渆ye-catching pattern.鈥� Its colors included green and a hue a policemen described as 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know, maybe or something.鈥�
Surveillance footage showed how the two men walked over to the bag, unzipped it, and pulled out the pressure-cooker bomb inside, in doing so somehow disabling it. (This is not the method they teach at bomb-disposal school.) Leaving the device on the sidewalk, the pair 鈥� tentatively identified as Egyptian tourists 鈥� then made off with the spiffy suitcase.
Then another part of the village bomb squad swung into action: A woman who lives nearby noticed the pressure-cooker bomb as she walked past it. The message from all those 鈥淚f you see something, say something鈥� ads kicked in. She perhaps also remembered that her grandmother鈥檚 pressure cooker didn鈥檛 have wires sticking out of it.
In any case, she called 911.聽
Police were on the scene within minutes. The device was safely removed, and it yielded used to locate and arrest the suspect.聽
And what are 鈥渕ungo men鈥�? I thought you鈥檇 never ask.
Barry Popik, in his , says, 鈥� 鈥楳ungo鈥� is a word used by sanitation workers to refer to things salvaged from the trash.鈥澛�
The Lexicon of Trade Jargon, a Works Progress Administration project, had a pre-1938 entry for mungo or mongo, according to . It referred 鈥渢o the person who salvages discarded items, rather than the things being salvaged,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淭his term appears to be specific to New York City.鈥�
Mungo is in many dictionaries as a textile term.
, for instance, defines it as 鈥渞eclaimed wool of poor quality and very short staple.鈥� Mr. Popik, referencing the variant mung, noted that 鈥渢his has been assumed to be the source of mungo or mungo men. But no direct link has been found.鈥�
Among the usage examples Popik cites is this 1977 passage from The New York Times, which, God bless, grants even dumpster divers the honorific 鈥淢r.鈥�: 鈥淛ason Martinelli鈥檚 idea of a night on the town is to jump into his mungo-picking outfit, jump into a commodious refuse bin, and just root around in there collecting 鈥榝antastic, free, found material鈥�....鈥� It鈥檚 garbage to others. But 鈥渢o Mr. Martinelli and others in the city鈥檚 subculture of scavengers the term is 鈥榤ungo.鈥� 鈥�
