This Mask is Blocking My Permanent Scowl

And it's kinda gross...

I spent the Summer of 2020 practicing my Mean Eyed Look.  This took a lot of practice and refinement because I needed the world to know how put out I was, but most of my face was covered with an insufferable mask.  People couldn’t see the hard set of my jaw, or the downturned lips, so I had to get my glare in top shape.  Do you know how hard it is to really convey extreme annoyance to someone who’s six feet away and standing behind plexiglass, using nothing but your eyes? 

After a couple of months, I got tired of the pretense and ditched the mask.  Being a Follower of the Real Science, I never believed they worked.  It said as much on the box.  But talk about tough!  It was not easy to be one of the only people in the store going Free Face.  I have to admit that my daughter had stronger convictions than I did and she flat refused to play along with the big psych from the get-go.  I decided that I needed to be at least as much of a boss as her.  She was living in my house, after all, and if I let her get that kind of upper hand, I’d soon be scrubbing her toilet and doing her laundry.  So, I decided to look at it as a ‘Training my Brave’ opportunity.  I traded in my scowl for a bright smile when I ventured into public places.  I figured people needed to see a smile once in a while.

But in truth, it was nerve-racking.  As much as I knew the mask thing was bullshit, I also knew that many people fully believed that I was endangering their health.  I was a walking machine of death, just breathing my spike protein air all over the place.  They cut wide swaths around me.  Some of those people had better Mean Eyes than I ever dreamed of achieving and they were aiming them at me!  Truly, I’m not a fighter and I like to get along with people, so making enemies out of perfect strangers was an exercise in courage for me.  I stayed home plenty and it wasn’t because I was scared of cooties.

In spite of the hostility, I felt that it was important to, what are they calling it these days? Ah yes, live my truth.  Just because these people believed that the mask was going to save them from whatever that manufactured piece of virology was – didn’t make it true.  I’m not in the habit of suffering for someone else’s delusion.  As with so many other lies that are shaping the discourse these days, I don’t care how many times you say existential, I’m not going to forsake what I know to be right and start dancing with that nasty naked emperor.  These days, we have so many people speaking in ‘intellect-eze’ and sounding so educated…but the actual garbage they are spewing is wholly devoid of logic.  Take your over-educated idiocy on out of here because I’m not impressed.  I went to college, too.  You know what I learned?  I learned that if that mask could save you from particulate matter, the CDC guys would be wearing them instead of those hazmat suits in the laboratory.

As trepidatious as I was around angry, masked strangers, dealing with my own masked peeps was another ballgame.  To Mask or Not To Mask was the tell on where a person stood in what I had come to view as The Big Power Grab (more on that in a later installment) .  We tended to fall into one of three categories:  mask up to slow the spread, mask up because the sign on the door required it, or the mask doesn’t do squat and I’m not wearing it.  I had loved ones in each category and it mattered immensely to me which path each person was going to follow.  I’ve learned since that it was an extremely accurate prediction for where each of us stand on the ‘The Issues’.

Those who refused to wear it gained my immediate regard because they were on my team, ready to stand against The Big Power Grab on general principle and knew the mask science didn’t back up the claims.  These people had an intuitive understanding that the cootie was Round One in a much bigger game and the mask was an important element in weakening us on so many levels.

Those who wore it because they believed it was actually stopping or at least helping to curtail the spread of the cootie got a pass.  They were doing what they thought was wise.  They honestly didn’t want to be responsible for making someone else sick, while also protecting their own health.  I think a mask against particulate matter is like screening your windows with chicken wire, but the theory seemed to be that at least a couple of the mosquitos would fly into the wire and be rebuffed.  Some people even said as much, ‘If it helps even a little, I’m willing to do it.’  I can agree to disagree because at least I know your heart is in the right place.

But I have had a hard time with the people who only wore the mask because, and only when, they were told to wear it.  I’ll just stop there on that because, honestly, there were a few places where I had to do a little bleating myself.

The ABC store required a mask and I needed The Recipe – think The Waltons.  If you’re not from NC, the ABC store is the liquor store and the only place you’re going to find The Recipe.  When you have that kind of monopoly, you can make the rules and even I will comply.  Thank goodness for my daughter.  She found out that SC didn’t make you wear a mask and they had a huge discount liquor store.  We started making hauls down there and stocking up. 

Once, I went to the mountains with a friend for the weekend.  She can’t walk past a slot machine and there just so happened to be a casino around the corner.  So, in the interest of not disappointing my buddy, I donned the mask for a couple of hours of throwing my money away.  I might have felt better about the whole affair if I’d have won something.  The best I could do in that situation was to constantly sip my drink.  Now I know how to breath and drink at the same time, so all was not lost.

And finally, I had to go into the office for a couple of days.  As luck would have it, I had broken a tooth and you could see it if I smiled.  I looked like I was raised in the trailer park.  To make matters worse, I had a new supervisor that I had yet to meet face to face.  Office duty came before the dentist appointment, so you can bet I gladly wore my mask for those two days.  It was a pretty one that my mama made and it matched my outfit. 

If you read my first installment of this story, then you know that I simply do NOT like to be told what to do, how to do, when to do, or where I can and can’t go.  That being the case, the whole mask ordeal was a challenge for my temperament.  I mean come on!  We are crammed into some restaurant scarfing down nachos.  If you honestly thought you were in danger, would you be there?  I went to Charleston for a four day birthday trip.  Tourists were everywhere, it was the middle of July, hot as Hades, and you couldn’t walk down the street without bumping into people – and they all had on their masks.  Again, I ask, if you honestly thought you were in danger, would you be there?

But it was a mandate, a rule, a societal expectation.  It signified to the world that we loved grandma.  It was a billboard to the world that we weren’t selfish.  It meant that we were socially conscious and were willing to sacrifice our very breath to help save humanity.  And to really hammer home the point, we put one on our babies, too.

With all the studies and data coming out now, it’s safe to say that masks and lockdowns were enormously disruptive and destructive, on so many levels, while doing absolutely nothing to stop the spread of whatever freak concoction was released upon the world.  Those who can now admit at least this much, want to give the benefit of the doubt to our masters.  They are comfortable with allowing that the all-knowing had to do SOMETHING about the growing health threat, they simply and innocently, got it wrong.  It’s okay though, the experts have learned from the experience and will take these lessons into the next fiasco.  But I’m here to say that IF that were true, and it’s not, then when you screw up that bad, you are NOT the expert, you are incompetent and need to be fired.    

The actual truth is that we were subjected to a massive con job, designed to measure our collective compliance and ability to be controlled.  It was deliberate, served many purposes, and is only just the beginning.

Being my hard-headed self, I choose my own strategy.  I took multi-vitamins, extra vitamin C and D, a bit of zinc and NAC to strengthen my immune system.  I got outside in the sun and fresh air.  I ignored the fifteen thousand bottles of hand sanitizer that seemed to be in every nook and cranny of this country and continued to be around people.  All so that my body didn’t forget how to fight off germs. 

What’s funny is that the people that I socialized with were often the same people that did nothing to help themselves except wear a mask and sanitize their hands.  The same ones that were quoting newscast terror to me and getting mad because I wouldn’t comply. 

And I’m the asshole…