I am not a germaphobe.
I grew up running the neighborhood where I grew up, and the hobby farm my grandparents lived on. I spent hours outside no where near a sink, probably eating more dirt than anything most days. Hand sanitizer did not exists. It was a beautiful childhood really.
This is not to say I didn’t wash my hands nor try to stay clean. In fact, as a young person I gave up my idea of being an archaeologist when it became clear how dirty the job would be. Coming home at the end of the day, showering and seeing the dirt pouring off me cured me of being “Minnetonka Jones”.
So now, in this unusual age, I find myself noticing everything I touch. I come up with strategies to make it from point A to B with minimal use of my hands. Elbows and wrists, fully covered by sweater and hoodie sleeves become substitute hands. Also I’ve noticed the complete lack of handicapped door openers in my brand new apartment building. REALLY DORAN? REALLY?
I also have never really worn a mask, other than when I was doing truly heinous jobs. Such as wen we cleaned out the animal buildings on my grandparents hobby farm after they moved. Do not make me relive that nightmare, let’s just say it’s lucky I’m still alive!
I did wear a medical mask briefly when I went to the urgent care twice earlier this year, but that was to protect others from my horrible cough. I also wore it into Walgreen’s to pick up the recommended cough syrup and cough drops. I got a few sideways stares, but I didn’t care. I was sick. I was protecting people.
So now, I have this lovely mask made by a friend, and I love it. Here it’s shown hanging to dry after my outing today. It’s great. And it’s also really, really scary to actually wear it.
Easy to wear and clean!
So today I had to go shopping. I struggled to put it on in the grocery parking lot until I saw someone coming out of the store with one on. Then I took a deep breath, put it on and marched into the store. As I came in I looked around to see almost everyone else wearing one. I was not alone.
Close up, does anyone see any SARS-CoV-2 on it? Hope not!
I spent the next hour or so trying to navigate the aisles, avoiding other shoppers, trying to see things below the mask, trying not to touch the mask (fail) or touch my face (double fail) or touch something and then touch the mask and then touch my face (triple fail). It’s not that comfortable, and no matter how cute the fabric is, it made me feel like I was slowly losing oxygen to my brain. And I already hate grocery shopping. And now I have to wear a mask while doing it.
Ugh.
The thing is, these masks don’t do anything to protect me, and the one I’m wearing may not protect you either. A study recently came out that had volunteers cough into a surgical mask and a cotton mask. BOTH were found to have particles of virus on the OUTSIDE of the mask after coughing. They said that further studies are needed to learn whether or not the masks slow or stop the velocity of the cough, thus reducing the range of the virus. (See https://www.newsweek.com/surgical-cotton-face-masks-ineffective-blocking-sars-cov-2-particles-when-covid-19-patients-1496476 for the story.)
This reminds me of stories I heard about people wearing crepe paper in their gas masks during WWI. And rumors I heard about people also wearing this same paper as masks during the Influenza pandemic of the same time period. Are we doing the same thing?
Will I wear a mask out to the store? Yeah, I will. Do I believe it’ll keep me or you safe? Not really. Will it make me feel better to wear it anyway? That is the 1 million dollar question.
We keep saying that this will change us forever. I think people have short memories. I also think that we’re starting to grasp at straws because we don’t have answers. We need more testing. We need more medical supplies. We need more scientists studying this bug. We need a vaccine. We need to be patient. We need answers.
And, I guess if it makes people feel better, we need to wear our masks.
I Was Born an Only Child 