Would You Like a Little Muster With That?

I was having coffee with a couple friends when our conversation suddenly went blonde.  I can say that because I am blonde. 

“Have you noticed all those Muster Area signs outside stores and such?” Deena asked.  “What is a Muster Area anyway?”

“It must be a condiment thing.” Moira said.  “Maybe it’s where they have barbecues during sales and such.”

Deena and I stared at Moira.  “What are you talking about?” I asked, not a little fearfully.

“Oh.  Forgive me.  I forget who I’m with and tend to use big words sometimes.  Condiments are just a fancy word for fixings.  You know, like mayonnaise, or relish or ketchup.  That’s what they should have put on those signs.  Ketchup Area.  Get it?  You still have your condiment but now it has a double meaning.  It’s both a place to add fixings to your hamburgers or hotdogs, and a place where you can catch up with each other.  Get it?  Catch up?  Ketchup?  Relish Area would work too.  That could mean an area to relish the moment as you eat your hamburger.  I don’t know why they’d call it a Mustard Area though.  Maybe that’s our nation’s favourite fixing.”

“It’s a Muster Area,” Deena explained.  “Not a Mustard Area.”

“Well that doesn’t make any sense at all,” Moira said. “I’ve never heard of a condiment – sorry, a fixing, called muster before.  Maybe it’s a spelling error.”

“Muster isn’t a condiment,” Deena said, her left eye starting to twitch.

“Well then what is it?”

“It’s a word, you know, as in ‘muster up your courage’.” Deena told her.

“If you already knew what it was then why were you asking us about it in the first place?” Moira asked, rolling her eyes at me.

“I know what it means but I don’t know why suddenly there are signs everywhere with ‘Muster Area’ on them.” Deena replied.

I had been wondering the same thing myself, but was reluctant to admit to it.  Furthermore, the last time I had heard anyone use the expression “muster up your courage” was back in the seventies.  Muster is not a word you hear every day. 

“Well that’s it then,” Moira said sipping her coffee.  “It’s a place for insecure people to go until they manage to work up some courage.”

“In a parking lot?  What?  How would that even . . . Moira, you’re an idiot.”  Deena sputtered, but not without affection.

“Kidding.  If muster means to gather up, then it must mean a place to gather up.  Like if there’s a fire or an emergency or something,” Moira said, setting down her mug.

That’s the thing about Moira.  Her pendulum swings from strange to smart with very few stops in-between.  It’s just one of the many things I love about her. 

Knowing what a Muster Area is still begs the question of why they would use that word in the first place.  Why not have the words “Emergency Gathering Point” on the sign instead?  It seems to me that an emergency sign is a poor place to be using language no one has ever heard of.  If terrorists attack or Bill throws a lit cigarette in the bathroom waste paper basket, you don’t want to have to think too much about where it is you’re supposed to go.  Running for your life is no time to be asking someone for a dictionary. 

“Maybe it’s a government conspiracy designed to wipe out the illiterate.” I said. “While all the book smart people are safely gathered at the Muster Area everyone else is stumbling around in the streets getting hit by cars and taken out by terrorists.  Or maybe it’s just the opposite!  Maybe it’s a youth conspiracy to gather everyone old enough or smart enough to know what the word muster means all in one place and then take them out.  It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Now it was my turn to be stared at.  Moira used her index finger to make discreet circular motions on the side of her head.  Then we all ordered a burger.  For some reason we were suddenly in the mood for mustard.