I recently saw a father, a mother and their three children walking through a store. All five were wearing masks. They weren’t even the medical-grade KN95 masks. They were those cheap little light blue ones that come in a box of 25 or 30 like tissue paper — those cheap, useless ones that have gaps everywhere. It was pathetic. I thought to myself, who are they trying to protect from whom? My next thought: Who do they think they’re fooling? My next thought: Those poor kids — I saw it as a form of torture. My final thought: If you’re all sick and contagious, then stay the hell home until you’re better.
I have recently taken to speaking to those wearing masks. I assume they are contagiously ill — and simply MUST go to the store — but wear the mask only so as not to infect others with their disease. I face them and tell them that I hope they get better soon.
Some of them thank me. Some of them just look at me in silence. But there was this one person who looked at me and — seeming to smile — replied, “Oh, thank you, but I’m not sick.”
With a slight look of sadness I replied, “Oh, but you are.”
Arthur Saginian
Santa Clarita
