Learn To Love Your Mask

At first blush, I embraced the idea of mask wearing but with the added innovation of wearing Halloween masks instead of surgical masks as the country was going through a shortage of surgical masks. I was thinking of a Fred Flintstone mask for myself. 

Around this time while "shooping" at the nearby Food Lion, I noticed that only a couple of people were wearing masks. I was tempted to approach those folks and question why THEY were wearing such a mask when that mask would be of much better use in the Apple.

I resisted the temptation and returned home for few more hours of teevee where I found out that my Fred Flinstone mask wouldn't work because it didn't cover up the mouth or the nose.

Damn it all.

Still I figured that someday soon masks would be a matter of fashion and conversation as in " Wow. I really like your mask." etc.

The next time I visited the Lion a week or so later, many more people were wearing masks and I gave out my first compliment to a guy who had the first scarf type mask I had seen. I still wasn't wearing a mask so when I told the guy that I liked his mask, he just nodded.

Then Donald Trump announced that masks were a good idea but he himself wouldn't be wearing one.

A week later the majority of people at Food Lion had masks including myself. I had a disposbale mask, completely uncool. I did sneeze into it though so I was glad to dispose of it at the conclusion of my shopping due to the aerosol attack that I had subjected the mask to before it found its way into the trashcan.

When I got back from the Lion, I was surprised to see our neighbor Kim from across the street dropping something off on our porch as I was pulling into our driveway. We waved from a sixteen foot distance. She smiled and crossed the street back to her own house. On our porch was a plastic zip-lock bag containing two scarf type masks; one for Lynn and one me. She had been making masks for the past few days and selling them yet just to be a good neighbor she gave us our masks pro bono.

Lynn and I did have a dispute over who should get the mask with the bling. Lynn insisted that bling was a female accessorry. I argued that the male/female bling thing didn't apply to masks as her argument was then and mine was now.

I lost the argument.

Next shopping day, everybody had masks on and those who didn't were getting some dirty looks from those who did. I was proudly wearing my new mask as I styled and profiled my way through the store. Several people nodded at me and I nodded back. We were the ones with the coolest masks.

I came back home and turned on the teevee only to see Veep Mike Pence hopping off a plane somewhere proudly not wearing a mask of any kind.

I thought...good thing Pence hadn't shown up at our Food Lion so goddamned barefaced and contagious. I'd love to throw a mask on that guy. Then I went back to my original idea. Wouldn't it be great to wear a Mike Pence mask to the Lion only with a hand made scarf mask wrapped around the mouth and the nose of the Pence mask.

Perhaps someday but at the present.

At the moment, I'm proud of my mask. I'm learning to love it and with my face, it's an improvement. I no longer need an excuse to wear a mask which plays into my lifelong dream of being The Lone Ranger which I plan on achieivng by adding an eye mask to the top of my scarf mask.

So as we go into the "new normal", I kinda hope masks become the usual rather than the unusual adding some mystique to our lives as we learn to judge people by their masks and are amazed what we see when they remove them.

Although not in a Phantom of the Opera/Queen of Outerspace kinda way.

So I leave y'all with these simple words.

Learn to love your mask.