Is a Mask Really Too Much to Ask?

I've been wearing a mask pretty religiously now for nine months. This wearing of a mask thing is interesting, and a little weird. It's particularly weird to see everybody else wearing one, at least here in Central New York. People in my region have been really good about masks. I don't go anywhere -- the store, the Post Office, the bank -- without seeing my fellow New Yorkers complying with this simple protective measure. There are always a few folks, of course, who think they don't need to wear one, who think it's a political statement not to, but I steer clear of them and hope they don't get sick. I certainly don't want them to make me sick. Then I come home and wash my hands before I touch anything, including the dog, and wipe down the door knobs, maybe give the mail a spritz of Lysol. You know, just in case.

The other day I was thinking about the benefits of being masked. It's inconvenient, and sometimes annoying when I leave the mask in the car and have to go back to get it, but all in all not that big a deal. Turns out there are some real non-health positives to mask-wearing: 

• I only have to wear eye make-up, and if I have on sunglasses I don't even have to do that. Saves time and money.
• If I'm in a hurry, I don't have to pluck unsightly hairs from my face.
• Bumping into people I don't want to talk to, I can pretend I didn't recognize them with their mask on.
• Even if I get trapped into talking, the conversations are short because we can't really hear each other anyway.
• I'm protected from the smells of society: garbage, body odor, bad breath, over-zealous perfume-wearers. 
• If I've eaten garlic or onions and forget to brush my teeth, no problem.
• I can talk to myself in public and nobody knows.
• I can mutter curse words to rude store clerks and they can't hear me. And if they do, I explain, "Oh no, these darn masks! I said 'Luck to you!'"
• There's a certain sense of invisibility that I like, cruising around incognito. Unfortunately, my red hair is usually a tip-off that it's me, which no fewer than ten people have said to me in the past week.
• I suppose I could rob a bank without any extra disguise, but bank-robbing isn't really in my wheelhouse. Besides, they'd know it was me because of the hair.

I'm sure there are other benefits I haven't thought of, but for now these will suffice. Of course the most important benefit is staying safe. This weirdness will pass, the virus will get managed sooner or later, and the pharma industry's scientists will come up with a vaccine and therapeutics. In the meantime, let's give a thought to those quarter-million-plus families who have lost loved ones in this strange time in history, and to the "long-haulers" -- the people who got sick and got better but who are still struggling with long-term effects...and to all those businesses gone forever, and to the millions of unemployed, and to the kids who may have psychological trauma for a long time from this new normal. We are living in history, a year (or more) that will be written about for decades to come, and that's interesting in a "Wow, look what we lived through" kind of way. In any case, when this is over, when we're actually back to normal, let us never forget what this felt like: staring at our four walls, not seeing the people we care about for months on end, filling our freezers to bursting "just in case," and looking at fearful eyes above the masks of our neighbors and friends and loved ones, those who are close enough to see but not close enough to hug. 

Another benefit of wearing a mask just popped into my head: staying alive to see another day, and being able to raise a glass with friends to the end of this wretched pandemic. Yeah, that's a big one, isn't it?