The Strange Return of Mr. Mum

There are many places where a man might want to sit down and spend his birthday on a warm spring day, if work isn't part of the plan.

An outdoor cafe, the ballpark or the deck of a boat are three possibilities that come to mind for an afternoon given to simple pleasures such as enjoying the sunshine and being glad to be alive.

No question, any one of the three would have been fine as I marked the anniversary of my arrival on Planet Earth recently and no need to stop there; feel free to add a beer garden to the list.

But the way it turned out, little time was spent outdoors or sitting down. There were no frosted mugs of brew being hoisted, although that might have made the experience a little easier --- or maybe not.

I know one thing: I wasn't expecting to find myself a part of the return of Mr. Mum.

For those who came in late, Mr. Mum was the star of a newspaper cartoon -- "The Strange World of Mr. Mum," drawn by Irving Phillips -- that was quite popular during the 1960s. The character, as I recall, was pictured with a canine companion and never failed to live up to his name. Ever the silent type, Mr. Mum would stroll from one odd encounter into another, each captured with humor in a single panel (except on Sundays, when a multi-panel strip appeared).

He was the would-be passerby who turns a corner only to be frozen in his tracks and thrust into the role of innocent bystander/involuntary witness amid some occurrence that's both unexpected and surreal. In his world, Mr. Mum was on the far side long before there was "The Far Side" by another gifted cartoonist, Gary Larson.

At some point in the 1970s, Mr. Mum and his pooch walked right out of the newspaper and into that land of the lost where cartoon characters go when their creator retires or a new feature comes along to bump them out of their space.

Whatever the circumstances, one day I noticed that Mr. Mum was gone.

Over the years that followed, I didn't give him much thought, until he suddenly showed up out of the blue on my birthday, of all days. I don't know whether Irving Phillips had ever dropped Mr. Mum into a scene at a New York State Department of Motor Vehicles office during his heyday, but that's where I encountered him when he made his comeback.

Life yields rewards and punishments that come in all shapes and sizes. Neglecting to renew my driver license sooner, via online or by mail, meant having to accomplish the task in person, due to the requirement of an eye exam.

Once I realized this, I wasn't sure which would prove more painful --- the wait that awaited or the new photo that was unlikely to be an improvement over the mug shot already in use. But it didn't really matter. My license was due to expire on my birthday, so there was no alternative, other than waking up as a pedestrian the next day.

I kept telling myself that as I pulled into and out of the parking lot for the DMV office in Nassau County where there were no spaces to be had. Resigned to my fate, I drove away, continued across Old Country Road, into a residential section where on-street parking was permitted and left my car in front of a house that looked too nice to belong to a family of auto strippers.

This resulted in a hike that amounted to a week's worth of exercise and provided enough time to come to grips with the awful truth (as the late great thinker Bucky Fuller put it): I was going to walk into the place and find it packed.

So the good news was that I wasn't shocked at what I saw when I entered the DMV facility and as a preliminary to the main event, waited briefly to receive the all-important ticket with a number that represented my turn.

Once I had the ticket, I scanned the area for a good spot where I could join the standing-room-only crowd behind twin rows of benches that reminded me of church pews. From there, I would wait and watch the electronic boards above the broken oval of customer service stations.

The turn numbers were displayed in red lights and if anyone in the crowd had telekinetic powers to move the numbers to their advantage, I didn't see those powers in use. I certainly tried hard to develop any that I might have been given at birth but didn't know about.

Ever so slowly, the digits would change and it was enough to make one wish that initiating small talk with an employee in a government office amounted to a capital offense. No need to talk about the weather, the Mets or how anyone is feeling; just answer the questions, get what you came for and keep the numbers moving, thank you.

As for where to stand and watch it all, I knew that the spot selection was important. After all, waiting your turn at the DMV is not the same as waiting for your number to be called at the deli counter in the supermarket.

Ideally, you want a spot that is somewhere off from the big crowd, to keep the jostling to a minimum -- unless you happen to enjoy physical contact with rude strangers in a rush. But you also need to have the kind of vantage point that makes it possible to watch the electronic boards and, with a nod towards strategic planning, be able to move out when that glorious moment finally arrives and it's your turn.

Until that happens, there's not much else to do to pass the time, besides turning your attention to the TV monitors programmed with trivia quizzes and public service announcements or observing your fellow travelers from a distance.

I thought I was standing in a pretty safe spot to do all of the above -- behind and slightly away from a row of benches/pews -- as I recalled a Tennessee Williams line from "The Glass Menagerie" about "the long delayed but always expected something that we live for." I wondered if a visit to the DMV had had anything to do with the inspiration for it. Maybe Williams had waited too long to renew his license by mail, too, and suffered the consequences.

If so, I could only guess how long a wait had sparked the great playwright. But in my case, minus the musings of genius, I was left to do the simple math of harsh reality. The way I figured it, comparing the number on my ticket to the one on the boards, with the rate of change as a factor, I was looking at about a two-hour wait.

"So, there you go --- a line skipper," I heard someone say.

Next to treason, there may be no worse accusation one could voice in a public place. My knowledge of French history is limited, at best (and I side with the Belgians who say they invented French fries), but I've always thought that Robespierre and the Reign of Terror began with the beheading of some fool who had jumped a line.

"Yeah, that's what she did. She skipped a line."

The voice came from my right and belonged to a middle-aged guy who was wearing a baseball cap and the look of someone seizing his moment upon the stage. He was standing in close proximity to a short queue of people whose wait for service was exclusive of the red numbers on the electronic boards.

Due to a large sign encased in Plexiglas or something similar that stood behind me, I couldn't see or hear the woman who allegedly had walked up to the counter, ignoring a line of folks waiting their turn.

For me, it was like watching somebody talk on a phone and being limited to their end of the conversation. As the person on the other end, the woman could have been standing in a department store in Holman, Indiana.

On this end -- the one I could see and hear -- another voice piped up.

"As a matter of fact, I'm not the one who said it, lady, but if the shoe fits..." declared the fellow who was on line and at the head of it.

"Well, I said it and I'm looking at you!" the actual accuser interjected.

With that, a large man -- younger and more physically imposing than the other two -- rose up and out of the last row of benches/pews as he proceeded to make his way towards the line.

"You're looking at her? Well, now you can look at me --- that's my wife you're talking to!" he roared, offering the first guy a sufficient amount of trouble, if that's what he wanted.

That proposal was countered in short order by a younger male who had been standing on the line. He stepped forward and what he lacked in bulk he made up for in volume.

"You're talking to him? Well, why don't you talk to me? I'm his son and you want trouble with my father, you can start with me!" the newest participant screamed.

(Note: I have left out more than the gestures that accompanied their words. I like to think that while working many years as a newspaper reporter in Queens County, I quoted people correctly in presenting various heated exchanges that took place at school board meetings and public hearings. But possibly because I never filed a spot news story on line jumping, I cannot remember a time when -- for the sake of my more polite readers, if I have any -- I had to go to such lengths to soften the words of others through the subtraction of profanity as performed above.)

Seeing that I stood on the fringe of what seemed to be a contest to determine the angriest man/loudest cusser, as the son and husband squared off, I took the opportunity to display arguably my best footwork in public since the seventh grade, when I had danced The Twist with Patty LaReddola and we were the best couple on the floor until I ripped the seat of my pants.

Now, when it could mean a matter of life and limb, I deftly pulled off a 30-foot lateral glide to my left that was worthy of a "10" from judges Carrie Ann, Len and Bruno on "Dancing with the Stars." Meanwhile, a more daring fellow came up behind the husband and tried to hold him back, obviously unaware of the high casualty rate for peacemakers.

By then, whatever other conversations that had been going on halted and people had something else to watch besides the electronic boards and TV monitors. Some found the whole thing hilarious. From my new spot, I came to a sudden realization: I was viewing an amateur production of a professional wrestling scenario, with kibitzing managers and vulgar loudmouths full of bravado, threatening each other for entertainment and each determined to have the last word.

Just as the drama's fire seemed to go out, sure enough, it would flare up again. At one point, another big guy -- apparently a buddy of the husband -- entered the fray and demanded to know if this was where the trouble was. It was not unlike the wrestler who comes running out of the dressing room in a frenzy to help a friend from being unfairly outnumbered in the ring.

The only thing missing was the announcers.

Finally, the sound and fury died down in earnest, with no punches thrown, and business at the DMV went on as usual once again. I knew the show was over around the same time that I glimpsed the presence of a security guard for the first time. Since I don't know and am left to guess, I'm willing to accept the notion that he had gone out for a Wendy's Value Meal just prior to all hell breaking loose.

But before he made his appearance, others made theirs. Some Nassau County cops showed up and with the assistance of a DMV person who identified the various performers one by one, they escorted those individuals from the premises.

"Oh, sure, I have to leave now after waiting three hours," one griped.

"Sir, how long you waited today might prove to be the least of your problems," the cop advised.

They moved past Mr. Mum, who celebrated his birthday afternoon without much sunshine or the company of a dog, but eventually got what he came for -- new photo excluded -- and in considerably less time than he had calculated.

After one more walk, he drove home to sit down and hoist a cold one.