Masks slide away?

It’s been over 2 years now and most of us do not want to read about or talk about the pandemic anymore. But I thought, for posterity (because this is just going to seem so weird in a few years) I’d talk about when I am and am not wearing a mask. It’s the universal conundrum.

Masks are a weirdly important fashion statement of who we are and what we believe. And as is the fate of all fashion statements, may suddenly be sliding from the in-thing to the old-thing, like skinny jeans. It’s an ever-changing area of confusion in our lives, making the act of leaving our homes just that much more complicated. In a way it doesn’t matter, yet it is also a decision that must be made. There is no default. You are either choosing to wear a mask, or you are choosing not to wear a mask. I would do the neutral thing, but there is no neutral.

Yesterday an acquaintance of mine, an elderly women with cancer, was telling us about her discomfort over this past weekend when the person next to her on the airplane wasn’t masking. It mattered to her, so she asked him to please wear his mask. He refused, saying she wasn’t the flight attendant, so she flagged down a flight attendant who then told him to wear his mask. He angrily complied and they rode together in uncomfortable animosity for the rest of the flight.

Then last night they lifted the mask mandate on public transportation.

I’ve been trying to use logic and common sense when I determine when to wear my mask. But it’s a social construct, and social decisions cannot be determined by logic. Nonetheless, I try.

Here, for what it’s worth, are my recent mask decisions. I did not wear a mask when talking to a contractor in my home. I figured it was just one person. Neither did I wear one when a couple of friends came over. Plus, we mostly sat outside.

I also did not wear a mask when a friend and I went to an enormous tile store because the place was cavernous and nearly empty. I did not wear a mask when I dropped a package off at the UPS store because my package was pre-paid and I was in there for literally less than a minute.

However, I did wear a mask when I went to Trader Joe’s yesterday. Trader Joe’s is much smaller than the huge home decor warehouses and has many more people per square foot. I take a while, more than 15 minutes, to track down all the items on my list. Also, probably due to demographics, there is an unusually high rate of mask wearing in the specialty food stores like Trader Joe’s, Sprouts and Whole Foods. And I don’t want to be the asshole making everyone else uncomfortable.

I also note, when walking into a store, whether the employees are wearing masks. I have a high level of appreciation for anyone working with the public nowadays and I want to do my part to not make their jobs any worse. If they’re masking, they would probably appreciate it if I do too.

Except I forgot to wear my contact lenses and my mask was steaming up my glasses so badly that I could barely navigate the store. I found myself holding my breath as I hunted for each item on my list. Each second that I didn’t breathe gave me an extra second of sight before it all disappeared behind the fog.

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