Mook Of The Week

This week's mook is representative of a vast majority of the Korean population - the ajussis/ajummas who collect used cardboard.

These wastes of space clog the road, interfering with traffic, and very nearly (as far as I know) causing as many accidents as they possibly can.

Typically, these mooks are beyond old. They are just so wizened and dried up and wrinkled and bent over with age, they make Abraham Simpson look like a spring chicken. But there they are, dragging or pushing a load of all the cardboard in the world. Your natural desire to sympathize with them and wish their lot in life was better is mitigated, however, by the fact that they are usually dragging/pushing their load down the middle of the street when a perfectly fine sidewalk is RIGHT OVER THERE!

It used to be that I would see these mooks once in a while, just after making a turn so I have to brake sharply, but lately it's been every day, and I'm getting just a little sick and tired of swerving around these elderly speed bumps.

And their carts! They're these rickety old contraptions cobbled together from bicycle tires, scrap plywood, and odd bits of metal welded together into a framework. The technology for these things hasn't changed in over 50 years, I swear.

Or maybe they are using the same cart, handed down from father mook to his mook of a son.

I remember when I used to walk to work that I would pass one of these things padlocked to a lamp-post, waiting for whatever mook owned it to come and start to work. The mook had padlocks on both wheels, and I remember thinking, "Those locks are worth more than the cart The cart is there to make sure no-one steals the locks!"

The scabby old bat in the photo is pushing a load of cardboard down the road opposite the deck at Dunkin' Donuts where Flint and I used to hang out. I still go there, but it's just not the same.

Anyway, you (you complete and utter waste of skin) are a mook!