When I first started wearing a face mask, I wasn’t at all happy about it. For one thing, I guess I have big nostrils, because every time I breathed, the cloth on the mask would suck right up my nose. I had to keep pulling down the mask to catch a breath, which totally defeated the purpose of wearing it.
So I was relieved when I found, in a box under the kitchen sink, some masks I’d bought years ago when I was staining some furniture. They were shaped like cups that went over the face and unlike the cloth mask, didn’t cling to the skin. The problem was, they were plain, boring white. I wanted something more interesting, so I searched around the house for some colorful cloth (or something made out of colorful cloth) that I could cut up and sew over the mask.
I finally found the perfect material – soft black cotton with dainty pink flowers all over it. Unfortunately, the cloth currently was in the form of a pair of my panties. I didn’t care at that point. I cut them apart and then sewed the material over the mask. The end result looked and felt great.
All I can say is never in my wildest dreams would I ever have imagined that someday I’d be walking around breathing through my panties (or wearing them on my face).
Another problem with masks is they make me sweat underneath them. They also make my nose run…so I have to remove the mask to blow it – once again defeating the whole purpose of wearing one.
Another way I’ve been defeating the purpose is when I go grocery shopping. I’m in the habit of sniffing things before I buy them – especially produce. I can’t count how many bags of mildewed potatoes I’ve brought home over the years because I failed to give them my sniff test. But now I have to lift the mask if I want to sniff anything.
And then there are my ears. Never before did I realize just how flat against my head they were…until I attempted to get the elastic bands on the mask to stay on them. There’s just not enough ear meat sticking out of my head to create something to hook the elastics around. And when, after struggling for 10 minutes, I finally do manage to get the elastics to say in place, the minute I yawn or turn my head too quickly, they turn into lethal weapons and come snapping off like slingshots.
But the longer I have worn the masks, the more things I have discovered to like about them.
For one thing, I am saving a lot of money on lipstick. No one sees my lips, so there is no point in wasting any cosmetics. And I don’t have to keep using the little mirror in my purse to discreetly check my nose to see if there is anything hanging out of it.
And then there is that stubborn strand of hair on my chin that magically arrived with menopause, the one I have to pluck out on a regular basis. Now, with the face mask, I don’t have to bother with plucking any more. I can let the hair grow to a foot long if I want, and then just curl it up and tuck it inside the mask.
Wearing a mask also hides a lot of wrinkles, especially those trenches around the mouth that are referred to as frown lines. Before the mask-wearing era began, men who struck up conversations with me at the bank or supermarket looked to be in their 80s. Now, the men are more like in their 50s…at least I think they are. The also could be hiding saggy "Shar-Pei cheeks" behind their masks.
And now I can add extra garlic to my recipes and not have to worry about breathing on people and causing their hair to wilt. On a negative note, however, breathing my own recycled garlic-breath can get pretty...well, unpleasant.
But something happened a couple weeks ago that made me actually feel relieved I had to wear a mask. I had a dental appointment for my regular cleaning and checkup. When the dentist examined my teeth, he noticed that my partial denture on top was loose and said it would have to be refitted. He took impressions, then said, “I’ll have it back to you in a week.”
I stared wide-eyed at him. “You’re keeping it?”
“I have to send it out to the lab,” he said.
I had several errands to run after my appointment, so I immediately felt panicky. “You’re going to make me walk out of here looking like a jack-o-lantern? How embarrassing!”
He laughed. “So? Just wear your mask. No one will know the difference.”
You know, I think I actually might miss my mask when we no longer are required to wear one.
I emphasize the word “might.”
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