Word of the Week: Mungo!

This week's word is MUNGO: a dumpster-diver; one who extracts valuable things from trash.

Downtown at the health spa, Diamonda sat in the locker room, humming a careless tune and inspecting the cuticles on her left foot.

Suddenly, the room filled with the opening bars of “Stairway to Heaven” as her cell phone began to ring.

Diamonda snatched the phone. “This is Miss Zirconium.”

“Diamonda!” said a familiar voice on the phone. “You’ve got to get down here immediately! Some detective just brought in three of your Uncle Pierre’s antique Egyptian scarabs.”

Diamonda gasped, dropping her emery board. “But the scarabs were stolen from his car in that burglary three weeks ago!”

“Detective Flint claims a mungo found them in a dumpster behind Juanita’s Bar and Grill,” he said. “They’re testing for fingerprints.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she said briskly. “Stall him.”

Towelling off her hair and searching for her other sandal, Diamonda glanced up into the mirror and screamed. “I look like a freak! That cucumber-mungo mud mask turned my face magenta!”