Mask Paranoia - Year Two

It was a year ago today in New Jersey that Governor Phil Murphy issued the dreaded Executive Order 122 requiring the wearing of masks, or face coverings, in public indoor spaces to stop the spread of COVID until the pandemic is over.  One year on, we're still walking through our supermarkets and what few dry-goods stores are still in business looking like bank robbers or ninja warriors.  Other states - mostly Democratic states - have had mandates requiring them at one time or another.  And even though the euphemism "face covering" has been attempted to make them sound less sinister, scary or just plain weird, most people still call them masks.  I prefer to call them face coverings, or FCs (my mother has tried to stop me from calling them FCs, because she thinks it sounds dumb), but no, as far as most Americans are concerned, they're masks.  And while they might wear face coverings, they won't wear masks.  (And of course, gloves aren't called "hand coverings.")

I don't like it.  As I've said, I freak out at the sight of people wearing masks of any sort, which is why I don't accept invitations to Halloween parties and why street mimes (their masks are painted on!) make me nervous.  But I have an FC (as I'll call it from here on, because I know that pisses off my mother), and I wear it when I have to, however much I don't like to, and I'll keep wearing it whenever and wherever I have to just to help get this damn pandemic over with.

For the most part, though, I've been trying to avoid any place where an FC is required.  I can't avoid the supermarket, of course, and I can't avoid hardware stores either, thanks to spring gardening (hardware stores do sell grass seed and fertilizer).  But I've learned how to avoid banks and drug stores simply by using the drive-thru windows.  I hate drive-thru windows (all that idling), but I hate FCs even more.  And when it becomes apparent to you that the last place you want to be where everyone looks like they're about to rob a bank is a bank, the drive-thru window is essential.  And other places that require FCs?  If I don't have to go to them, like museums or book stores, I don't go. That includes the local library.  I have plenty of reading material at home.

Such places also include county parks.  I understand FCs, accompanied by social distancing, in indoor public spaces because of ventilation issues and recirculating air and all that, but Essex County, New Jersey, where I live, requires FCs and six-foot distancing even in parks despite the fact that they're outdoor spaces where keeping six feet or more away from others should be enough.  The result?  I haven't been in a county park since October 2019. I just go cycling on public streets.  

Again: I'll wear an FC when I have to, but to the extent that I can avoid it, I will. And again, when I do have to wear it, I'll be happy to, if only to help end the pandemic - a pandemic that knocked me off my feet just as I was getting my life back together after a rough time, which has been followed by an even rougher time thanks to COVID.  And, when I'm fully vaccinated, I'll restrict my social gatherings to fellow vaccinated people.  But I hope FCs don't become a thing after the pandemic ends, because I don't think anyone wants to live in a world where are we see are eyes without a face, like in that Billy Idol song (and he got the song's title from a French horror movie from the early sixties).  After all, our faces are our identities. If we have to wear FCs from now until the end of time, we'll be concealing and hiding our identities and our individuality from each other.

And we'd hate for that to happen.