On Sunday I was at Target scanning my items in self-checkout when I surreptitiously glanced up at the security camera. You know, the one where you can see yourself? I’m always tempted to look, but I try not to. Besides being vain, the act of a woman my age deliberately checking herself out on a video camera is just inviting self-criticism. I work out, I eat well, I hydrate, I still look good in a bathing suit, let’s leave it at that, I figure. What are we trying to be, the skinniest corpses in the cemetery?

Good luck with that. I choose life.

But on Sunday, I looked, and I looked again. I looked good. Youngish. I turned this way and that, pleased with my reflection. Left side, check, right side, check. As I inserted a twenty-dollar bill into the slot, I gave my best glamour pose. It was early on Sunday, and no one else was there, I figured I might never have another chance again to preen in front of a video camera.

(“Ma’am. Ma’am?

Still checking myself out.

“Excuse me, ma’am?

I turn away from my own fabulous reflection towards the Target employee.

“Yes?”

“This is a credit-only line.”

Drat.)

As I loaded my bags into my car, I wondered about my pleasing appearance on the Target video camera. Was it the mask? Do I actually look younger with half my face covered? Wah. Ever read Nora Ephron’s book I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman?

Yeah, Nora, now I feel bad about mine, too.

I was annoyed that I had to give my mask credit for something. I hate wearing a mask. I am no sooner walking out of a store and I am ripping it off my face. Friends have told me to “have fun with it. Buy pretty colors, pretty patterns, match your mask to your outfit.”

No. Never. I will never normalize it. Ever. I will wear it. But no amount of pressure will ever get me to normalize it. I have one ugly mask I have been using since this started in March. One. I will not spend one penny on buying more.

Since the subject of masks is so contentious, know that I am not an “anti-masker.” I don’t even know what that means. I wear a mask because I’m asked to. I wear a mask so I can have peace in my life. I wear a mask so I am not yelled at and subsequently arrested. It has recently come to my attention that I live my life right on the brink of just not quite getting arrested.

It’s quite something to be me.

The fact that my mask made me look ten years younger on video camera led me to think of other possible benefits there are to mask-wearing. Fighting COVID? Yeah, no. See yesterday’s post. Statistics say I have a better chance of getting charged by a hippopotamus than contracting COVID. Yeah, go ahead, look it up, see if I care.

I Follow the Science.

So in the spirit of generosity, let us give credit where credit is deserved. My mask:

• Hides my chin and makes me look ten years younger (as stated earlier).
• Provides me with the freedom to chew and snap my gum without looking and sounding like an 18-year old cashier in the Bronx wrapping muzzarel in an Italian market. I had a lot of fun with this in Target. I was chewing and snapping, chewing and snapping. Just delightful.
• Makes it easy to talk to myself. I wandered through Target in full self-dissertation, and no one batted an eye:
  • To leopard print jeggings: “Yeah, like I would wear that.”
  • To Target Starbucks: “I miss the old Target snack bar, the popcorn was banging.
  • To cosmetic case: “How is it possible that Burts Bees tinted lip balm is SOLD OUT?”
  • To seasonal aisle: “Back away from the Halloween decorations, Mary, you don’t need any more Halloween decorations.”
• Gives me license to sing. I was shamefully belting out “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” from The Lion King. Sir Elton would have been proud.
• Gives me freedom from having to smile at people all the time. It can get exhausting.
• Keeps me from buying Monster Mix and chowing it down while I shop. This bagged treat tries to pass itself off as trail mix, but it’s really chocolate and caramel candy with two nuts and one raisin thrown in. Monstrously caloric.
• Prevents me from feeling the need to apply Burts Bees lip balm every 8 minutes, which is per usual for me. When your face and lips are hidden behind a mask, a mask that just wipes it off anyway, who cares?

Remember, the great Nora Ephron once said, “Our faces are lies and our necks are the truth.”