LIFE BEHIND THE MASK

Until the Covid 19 era, I had never had the pleasure of wearing a mask. Just never felt I needed one. But after two months of quarantine, two months of suffering through daytime TV, two months of getting hammered by Sharon at Scrabble, Yahtzee, Uno and Trivial Pursuit, two months of futile efforts to assemble jigsaw puzzles, I decided it was time to strap on a mask and rejoin the outside world.

My first impression was that my mask was too loose. Kept feeling like it was about to slide off my nose. Sharon told me to tie knots in the straps to tighten it up. So I did. It then felt like a loose mask with several knots tied in it. I never really did get it to fit as tightly as I would have liked. Found myself constantly pulling it back up over my nose.

The next issue came whenever I exhaled. Every expelled breath would fog up my glasses. There are several suggestions out there to combat this, including washing your glasses in soapy water to leave a film on them that will prevent fogging. Tried that. I wound up with foggy glasses that also had tiny bubbles all over them. Decided to just wear my contact lenses.

It didn’t take long to discover that one’s breath gets really hot under a mask. My face got really warm really fast. Oh, and I also learned to pop a mint before donning the mask. That warm breath is funneled directly up into your nose and it doesn’t always resemble the roses in spring. And God help you if you have to sneeze. If you ever doubt the fluidity of a sneeze, wait til it’s pinned up against your chin. (Sorry if I’ve grossed you out. Just keeping it real…..way too real.)

Undaunted, my first foray was to my local home improvement store looking for spark plugs and air filters with which to do my annual lawn mower maintenance. Once inside, I noticed all the older folks were wearing masks just like me, but all the younger blue collar professional types, landscaping workers and construction folks, were not. And they all seemed to snicker and grin when they saw me enmasked, as if to say “Yes I’m young! And Look! No mask! Deal with it!”

Then there is the communication issue. I approached a store employee, who was also wearing a mask, to inquire as to what aisle the lawnmower maintenance products might be. The conversation went something like this:

“Can oof sell me wahr I can fine park flugs?

“Effcuse me fir. Whaf did oo fay?”

“Park flugs.” Thor my lonmore.”

“Forry. Ahm haffing trubble unnerfanding yu.”

This went on for about ten minutes until I went into a pantomime of pushing my lawnmower and getting a shock from unscrewing the plug, after which she vaguely pointed in the direction of the landscape department and quickly walked away.

I couldn’t wait until I could get back in my car and rip my mask off of my flushed, heated face. Funny thing. When you wear a mask for awhile, once you take it off it feels like it’s still on. Weird.

I’ve since gone on several more journeys with mask in place. Like anything, once you get used to it, it gets a little easier. I’ve learned to speak mask and communicate much better. And maybe it’s my imagination, but of late it seems to fit a little tighter. My face must be getting fatter. Maybe it expands with the heat.

Anyway, if this is the new normal, I think I’m going to be okay with it. Now if I could only figure out how to give someone a big hug from six feet away.