0530blog
Unmasked For Now
It felt like that dream where you suddenly realize you forgot to put on your pants and everybody is pointing and gawking and laughing but the reality is it wasn’t a dream about pants, it was the reality of how it felt not to wear a mask while walking down the produce aisle at ShopRite on the day after the CDC said masks can go the way of the Edsel and pet rock if you’ve gotten properly vaccinated.
It’s all about trust, we are supposed to trust that anyone not wearing a mask in a store has gotten the two vaccinations and these days my trust meter is very low especially with a world of yahoos who insist with great intensity that it is their right to not wear a mask and not get vaccinated because as it is well known, the vaccine not only destroys the DNA but it also is part of a worldwide conspiracy led by soon to be divorced zillionaire Bill Gates. I would rather all shoppers go through an x-ray to determine if they have brains and I’m sure many would fail and complain that trump really won re-election.
So I kept my mask in my pocket just in case and I walked around the aisles, looking for large, soft flour tortillas and feeling like I was somehow breaking a law and it was a good naughty, feeling, kind of like speeding 90 on Route 80 and not getting caught or getting home and realizing they charged you for a small coffee while you got a large at Dunkin Donuts or the time I found a $100 bill at Home Depot and kept it. I wanted to approach shoppers and ask if they got both shots but I wouldn’t believe their answers and some guy or woman, for that matter, might punch me in the nose for getting too personal with something they say is none of my business, although it is very much my business if people plan to mingle without getting vaccinated and then getting the COVID-19 and passing it on to my son’s unvaccinated, best friend at the movies.
And I saw things I hadn’t seen in many months, the chins and noses of the people at Bottle King although the workers still wore masks as they did at Dunkin Donuts and ShopRite and one employee at check out said customers don’t have to wear masks anymore and I asked why she had a mask on and she just said, “I don’t know.” But what I do know is that I am making a statement while not wearing a mask just as I was making a statement when I wrapped the rubber bands around both ears ear and fit my mask on, being careful to cover my nose even though I have seen many people wear masks below their noses or even below their chins because I assume they think that as long as they have a mask, they are protected, like they could keep it hanging from an ear and they’d be magically safe.
So if I wore a mask when the scientists recommended that I wear one, then I will not wear a mask when those same scientists say I don’t need to get masked anymore, as long as I have had both shots, which I have. To keep wearing a mask, in spite of scientific suggestions, would be no different than those conspiracy types who don’t believe science unless they saw it on Fox or Breitbart or read it on Margaret Taylor Greene’s website.
I feel bad for the mask and plastic shield industry and and the workers who make the masks and shields, just when designer masks are coming in every color with big toothy smiles and selfie faces and bride and groom luxury face masks and masks with LED activated lights and rhinestone bling face masks.
The experts said that wearing masks helps us to avoid getting more than just the plague, they can shield us from getting other airborne illnesses, tuberculosis, influenza, measles, chickenpox, mumps, meningitis, anthrax, colds, anemia and the dreaded, nasty Lassa fever, an acute viral illness endemic in parts of West Africa including Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria. So wearing a mask is smart even in non-plague times but I don’t plan on wearing a mask and I expect the only people who will continue wearing masks are Asians and extreme hypocondriacs. Masks are a sign of abnormality and I crave normality, even though I realize that has always been an impossible dream in good or bad times and I will keep my fingers crossed that I don’t get Lassa fever.
All I need now is to read about a new variant that is making its way around New Jersey and it won’t be stopped by either Pfizer or Maderna or Johnson and Johnson and in that case, I will have a mask permanently grafted onto my face.