What I’ll miss about wearing a mask
Now that the Pandemic in the U.S. seems to be transitioning from boiling to simmering, and mask wearing and social distancing seems to be dropping by the wayside, here are the top six things I’ll miss about wearing a “Corona ain’t gonna catch me” mask:
#1 I’ll miss how you could pretty much go incognito when you shopped at Walmart. Put on a pair of sunglasses and a floppy hat and you never knew who might mistake you for Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt (I could count the number of times that happened to me on one hand – with my thumb and index finger making a big zero). Masks were great for when you just wanted to get in and out of the grocery store as quickly as possible without a whole lot of chitchat about this and that.
#2 I’ll miss how the mask covered up a variety of facial “ills” you always wished away, but no genie ever popped out of a magic lamp to make it happen. For instance: if you hated your nose because it’s bigger than a toucan’s, the mask shrunk it down to near nothing. If you were self-conscious about the lack of a strong chin, under a mask, every chin was as chiseled as granite. If you hated your smile because you thought it was a bit whopperjawed, with a mask on, your eyes did all the smiling.
#3 I’ll miss how the mask made it possible to never need an after-meal mint. In the “before times,” did you ever have a face-to-face conversation with someone and worried there might be a little bit of spinach stuck between your teeth; or wondered if they could smell your after-lunch garlic and onion breath; or were horrified by the thought that there might be a booger hanging right inside your left nostril? All the time! But with the mask on, who cared?
#4 I’ll miss how you could silently mouth off at your boss without them seeing you mouthing off. Not that I ever did. I’d just mouth off at others who weren’t wearing a mask; or smirk at the ladies who were gossiping about who did what to whomever right in front of the canned tuna section – which just so happened to be where I needed to be. Unfortunately, the mask couldn’t cover up a pair of rolling eyes.
#5 I’ll miss how my mask would always cover up my face when I was having a bad beard day. Which was almost every day because I just stopped caring about trimming it. I mean, why would I trim it? Nobody could see it anyway. And then there was the time I totally shaved off my beard – just to see how horrifying I looked without one – and was so thankful for my mask. I never left home without it. You’re welcome.
#6 And finally, after wearing a mask all day and having to smell your own coffee/garlic breath, I’ll miss how aromas seemed to stand out more as soon as I took off the mask. When I stopped to smell the roses, I could really smell them.
I went to Lowe’s the other day to buy some home improvement stuff, and shopped without wearing a mask at all. It was the first time in about a year for me being mask-less out in public. It felt strange, like I was walking around without a shirt. I was having a bad beard day, but nobody seemed to mind.