Wednesday, May 6, 2020

A Little Rant: Facemasks

I know many of you have been sporting the face mask for almost a month if not longer. My friend Claire who lives in New York reminded us that on a positive note, we no longer have any fear of people in masks. Poor bank robbers of the future. New gimmick required.

I resisted until last Friday, when my local government made it mandatory and offered to throw me in jail for three days if caught without one. Before last Friday I had been wearing mine in what I would call "high exposure instances" like shopping, but in general I was trying to avoid environments where there were lots of people and therefore, lots of potential exposure. Grocery shopping at 7 AM, the market at 3 PM, no more corner store. You all know the drill.

I am usually out for a walk at 6:30 AM for one hour with the dogs. Usually the same route, mornings are generally cooler and almost no people on the sidewalks, so the mask, although a bit uncomfortable, was bearable.

If I was out mid-day, it was not running errands in the city. Maybe I was at the dog refuge, but generally, once home from our walk, we stayed home. Until today.

My car registration needs to be renewed. I was putting this off for a variety of reasons, but mostly just because my license plate was stolen last August so I knew it was going to be a multi-step process of great Mexican bureaucracy, with copies and originals, payments at banks and more copies of said payments, and god knows what else. I figured it was going to take between 3 and 5 visits to a crowded office. I did mention above that my plan for avoiding getting sick was to avoid crowded environments.

I will post about that experience on Friday (as I have an appointment Friday morning), but what I did want to share was this. The lovely empty park bench.



And this;

Has any scientist tested these face masks at 5000 feet above sea level at noon in May in Mexico when it is 33/91.4 degrees out on a woman walking faster than she needed to uphill, soaking wet with sweat, and trying to suck in air through her home sewn face wask which is three (THREE) layers of tight knit cotton, the middle layer which was from a Wonder Woman t-shirt. Seriously, I needed to stop and close my eyes mid-hill (which I walk every morning effortlessly!!) to talk myself off the hyperventilation ledge.

I also realized that drinking water was impossible. To drink water I would have had to touch the mask (no touching the mask, no touching the face).

I arrived home thankful I had not bothered to shower or wash my hair today.

Anyone else ready to organize a "burn the face mask" party once The Stupid (COVID-19) is actually over??

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Yes!! I'm in!! Wore my mask for the first time yesterday ....totally awful!! Mind you I didn't have the custom made model...I will have to get sewing!