Zen and the Art of Mask Maintenance

Last summer, just a smidgen more than a year ago — months before COVID-19 was even a twinkle in the universe’s eye — supermodel Naomi Campbell unveiled a YouTube video that was nothing short of prophetic. Like many great soothsayers, Campbell faced an almost immediate storm of incredulity, scorn, and mockery, at least at first. Today, one can only marvel at her foresight.

In the July 2019 video, which has since racked up more than 3 million views, the fashion legend blithely detailed how she thoroughly degerms her airplane seat and surroundings before each and every flight. The U.K. Guardian, agog at the absurdity of wiping down your tray table, smirked at “Naomi Campbell’s extreme inflight hygiene routine.” CNN described the ritual — in which Campbell engages in wild and crazy activities such as cleaning her seat with disinfecting wipes and wearing a surgical mask in-flight — as “amazing” and “wonderfully bizarre.” Social-media users from around the globe scoffed and yukked it up, dismissing the model’s disinfection obsession as basic diva-level hypochondria.

Well. Here we are, one very long year later. Who’s laughing now? Not Ms. Campbell, who recently ratcheted up her personal flight-safety requirements to include a full hazmat suit, goggles, and face shield. Masks are largely required on flights, and thanks to the glories of capitalism, a Toronto company recently developed COVID-era astronaut-style anti-germ suits, selling them to nervous flyers at $250 a pop. Meanwhile, every time I try to do an extremely essential task, like panic-buying a pair of impractical shoes to wear to all the nonexistent, already-canceled events that I don’t have scheduled for this fall, I’m bombarded with ads for rainbow-hued, often bedazzled, “non-medical grade” fashion masks.

I’ll keep it real: I don’t really mind wearing a mask. I’ve been wearing them all summer, and so have my kids, and the world hasn’t ended — at least not yet! (2020’s not over, after all. Give it time.) Not everyone, however, is thrilled with the mask-wearing craze. Just last week, two passengers on a Delta flight from Detroit to Atlanta staged a revolt of sorts, both refusing to wear a mask on an airline that requires them. It did not go well. The flight returned to the gate, the rebellion fizzled out, and the scofflaws were booted off the plane. The rest of the passengers, I suspect, were not pleased.

I am not here to debate the constitutionality of various local mask orders across the country. I am not here to defend the government and media’s tragicomic messaging when it comes to masks: Remember back in March, when we were actively encouraged not to wear them? I am also certainly not here to approve of the feverish spike in public mask-shaming, exemplified by viral videos in which people film perfect strangers yelling at other perfect strangers about whether or not they are wearing a mask. (As a side note, can we stop shaming strangers via viral videos? It’s getting creepy. But that’s another column.)

I am here, however, to suggest that voluntarily wearing a mask in public is nothing to freak out about, and for the time being, it’s simply the polite and often correct thing to do. Picture this entirely realistic scenario: You are waiting in line at the wine store. (“Oh, man,” you’re probably chortling to yourself. “These days, I’m there all the time!”) Anyway, visualize a random bloke behind you who suddenly lets out a hacking cough so strong it almost blows the Chardonnay out of your arms, sending the respiratory droplets that can spread COVID-19 all over the room. Terrifying, right? It’s markedly less terrifying if you’re both wearing masks. “A mask,” as my sixth-grade son recently pointed out, “is like a dish for your saliva droplets that’s tied to your face!” And they say science is dead.

I’ve spent much of the summer in Colorado, where in many towns, masks are de rigueur — and guess what? It’s almost like things are back to normal, except people are wearing masks in stores, or when they can’t properly distance themselves from strangers. This is weird, I know. But it’s really not that bad. Also, for all the hand-wringing I’ve witnessed about how forcing kids to wear masks robs them of their childhood or traumatizes them deeply or will inevitably shape them to grow up into soulless masked Batman villains, well, no. My kids happily wore masks all summer, because they knew that would allow them to go into the toy store or venture out to the fro-yo stand or ride the gondola over and over and over again. They truly did not give a rip.

Of course, masks are not fail-safe, and they do have downsides. Some people don’t seem to know how to wear them, letting their nostrils fly free while breathing heavily over the baked goods in the grocery store. Then there was the time when my youngest child dropped his mask on the ground, stepped on it with a muddy shoe, and then promptly and proudly put it right back on his face. Another time, leaving a restaurant after a particularly lovely outdoor dinner — mask-free at the table, masked on entrance and exit — I noticed strange and unsightly bulges protruding from my middle son’s mask. “It’s like a pouch!” he beamed. “I can take a few extra French fries to go!”

Regardless of how you feel, I suspect we can all at least agree on the true bad guys of Covidtide: the people who discard their used, germy disposable masks on the ground. Gross! But then again, it’s hard to beat the people who take the time to bag up their dog’s doggie doo but then leave it in a plastic bag on a nature trail, so that nothing could disintegrate if it wanted to. This truly blows my mind. Anyway, consider wearing a mask. At the very least you can smuggle out some French fries next time you go out to eat.