A further tightening of the rules/better sign my company is taking the coronavirus seriously. During work yesterday/Thursday, e-mails came down from both my bosses that starting today/Friday, all workers are required to wear only surgical masks provided by the company. Apparently there had been "discussion" that people wearing homemade cloth masks could not be trusted to wash them after they got home; thus, these clean and disposable masks are the best, if not only, way to ensure that every employee is wearing a clean, virus-free mask.
I wasn't the only one one wearing a homemade mask; there was less than a handful of others I saw who brought their own, most of them doing so once masks were mandated at work Wednesday. But I'm narcissistic enough to think that someone looked at me and thought, "Man, that dude doesn't fucking wash his fucking mask!" And so my initial reaction to it was one of visceral defensiveness. As in, why in the hell don't you trust me not to wash my mask? Hell, even if I don't, the one person I'll harm is me since I'm the one wearing the (supposedly) dirty mask and thus (supposedly) breathing in my dirty respiration.
And then I thought, "Hey, about fucking time!" As much as I appreciate Mother making me these masks, they don't compare to a surgical mask. Its material is much better in preventing bad particles from either getting in or getting out. And yes, they are cleaner, if only because they're single-use. Shit, man, you can't trust people that they're going to wash their homemade masks!
But the bottom line is my company should have been supplying these masks three weeks ago, around the time I started wearing them. It was behind some states requiring and even mandating public use of masks one and even two weeks ago. If it was ahead of the curve, Mother would not have had to make masks for me.
Now I'll have to be honest: Mother's masks aren't entirely comfortable to wear. She made them with earloops made out of the same yarn as the rest of the mask, and while it's ingenious and pretty, they don't have the give that elastic loops on surgical masks have. They have been pulling on my ears, and they hurt like hell. Furthermore, upon further hand-washings I think the yarn of the masks shrinks, and so repeated wearings have, uh, worn on my ears more and more. Mother made four for me, and at least two of them have shrunk (I think) to the point where they don't stay on; the loops pull so much that they actually slip off my ear(s). When I told Mother, she replaced the yarn loops on those two masks with these elastic ones.
And now, those masks are obsolete. Or are they? Hey, they are beautiful, and I care that Mother made them for me. But now I am going to bring them to work but not wear them. How long will I keep up the lying charade to Mother of using the masks? Hey, at least I won't have to wash and iron the masks, right?
But ... I go to parks to walk/exercise after my half-day at work, and even though masks in public aren't mandated in Minnesota yet, I might as well wear them there. I haven't told Mother about exercising around parks and cemeteries yet, let alone this new rule at work. And if I tell her the latter, I might break her heart.
Eh, might as well keep using the masks, since I actually do have a use for them.
I wasn't the only one one wearing a homemade mask; there was less than a handful of others I saw who brought their own, most of them doing so once masks were mandated at work Wednesday. But I'm narcissistic enough to think that someone looked at me and thought, "Man, that dude doesn't fucking wash his fucking mask!" And so my initial reaction to it was one of visceral defensiveness. As in, why in the hell don't you trust me not to wash my mask? Hell, even if I don't, the one person I'll harm is me since I'm the one wearing the (supposedly) dirty mask and thus (supposedly) breathing in my dirty respiration.
And then I thought, "Hey, about fucking time!" As much as I appreciate Mother making me these masks, they don't compare to a surgical mask. Its material is much better in preventing bad particles from either getting in or getting out. And yes, they are cleaner, if only because they're single-use. Shit, man, you can't trust people that they're going to wash their homemade masks!
But the bottom line is my company should have been supplying these masks three weeks ago, around the time I started wearing them. It was behind some states requiring and even mandating public use of masks one and even two weeks ago. If it was ahead of the curve, Mother would not have had to make masks for me.
Now I'll have to be honest: Mother's masks aren't entirely comfortable to wear. She made them with earloops made out of the same yarn as the rest of the mask, and while it's ingenious and pretty, they don't have the give that elastic loops on surgical masks have. They have been pulling on my ears, and they hurt like hell. Furthermore, upon further hand-washings I think the yarn of the masks shrinks, and so repeated wearings have, uh, worn on my ears more and more. Mother made four for me, and at least two of them have shrunk (I think) to the point where they don't stay on; the loops pull so much that they actually slip off my ear(s). When I told Mother, she replaced the yarn loops on those two masks with these elastic ones.
And now, those masks are obsolete. Or are they? Hey, they are beautiful, and I care that Mother made them for me. But now I am going to bring them to work but not wear them. How long will I keep up the lying charade to Mother of using the masks? Hey, at least I won't have to wash and iron the masks, right?
But ... I go to parks to walk/exercise after my half-day at work, and even though masks in public aren't mandated in Minnesota yet, I might as well wear them there. I haven't told Mother about exercising around parks and cemeteries yet, let alone this new rule at work. And if I tell her the latter, I might break her heart.
Eh, might as well keep using the masks, since I actually do have a use for them.
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