“Are you afraid of catching something?” I’m in the locker
room, desperately trying to get out before the 15-minute deadline. I’ve got my
black mask on, as usual, and guessing this is what this woman is asking me
about.
She’s not
wearing a mask. Obviously. I’ve talked to her before, but she doesn’t remember
me. She likes to talk. A lot! Older white woman with scrawny legs and pot
belly. You know the body type, right? And, she’s got logorrhea. Diarrhea of the
mouth. I learned this word in a Netflix film called, Wedding Season,
where the protagonist won spelling bees in his youth and his prospective love
interest quizzed him with the word, Logorrhea.
“Logorrhea. L….O…..G….O….R….R…..H….E…..A. Logorrhea. Otherwise known as diarrhea of the mouth.”
This woman
had extreme logorrhea. I wanted to avoid getting into a conversation with her,
but I had to at least respond to her idiotic question about mask wearing.
“Yes,” I
shouted through my mask as she stood waiting in the doorway.
“What are
you afraid of getting?” she asked. “The flu…or a cold…. or???”
“COVID.” I
said, turning toward my swim bag to stuff more shit in it.
“COVID?”
she repeated puzzled.
“Yes,” I
sighed loudly but she probably didn’t hear me since I had my mask on. “People
are still getting it and getting sick and dying from it….”
“Oh, yeah.” She didn’t make a
move to leave. “I had it at Thanksgiving. I went to my brother-in-law’s house
for dinner and I got it then. And no one else was wearing a mask and when I….”
I tuned her out. I really had
to get out of there before the lifeguard’s started shouting at me to leave: “Are
there any Ladies LEFT?????!!!!!!”
But I had to
wonder, if she had gotten COVID and she knew that it was still around, then why
was she questioning me about my mask.
I told Ian
about this exchange and he said that if people have already gotten it and didn’t
get very sick, then they think it’s no big deal. Why wear a mask? “But people
are still getting sick and dying,” Ian continued, “and they’re not all just old
frail sick people. Young people are getting it too.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “And I have
so many friends who have been SO desperately sick from it, with long covid and
multiple instances of contraction of it and work missed and debilitating loss
of energy. It’s frightening.”
I do think
Ian is right though. People who have gotten it and not gotten sick just don’t
get the mask wearing. Little do they know that they might get it again and get
sick. Or they might be carrying it and give it to someone who is immune
compromised and kill them!
I’m not being
dramatic here. It could (and I’m sure it has) happened.
So, not to
be a paranoid anti germ person, but in crowded inside areas with no ventilation
like locker rooms or the grocery store, wear your mask!
You could
just save your life.
Or someone
else’s….
