THE NEW NORM

Everything is weird now a days. Agreed?

This past weekend, we went to our local green house to purchase flowers for our outdoor pots and various vegetables for my garden. And since it’s now illegal to show our faces in public, I wore my government approved lady-from-work, hand-sewn red bandanna mask.

So there I am, standing in the middle of a greenhouse, wearing my mask while people watching others in their own home-made masks–or surgical masks, or military grade masks, or a piece of paper taped to eye glasses mask, or my favorite, the graffiti spray-painted cloth with an image of a lip piercing mask.

Everyone is wearing a mask. It’s a trip. And all I can think is that the aliens are laughing at us. (You know, because they learned how to breathe toxic fumes without masks. Duh!)

The trippiest part about wearing a face covering in public is the lack of emotion. No one can see me smile. Others only see eyes squinting. Am I squinting because rays of sunshine are filtering into the greenhouse and blinding me? Do I have swollen eyelids from drinking too much while under quarantine? Maybe my eyes squeeze tight when I’m about to sneeze—which I do not recommend doing in public in this day and age. Take your Zyrtec before you leave the house! And on another side note, I do not recommend burping while wearing your newly sewn mask. Trust me on this one. It’s not pleasant.

Apparently, we are not allowed to have humor while wearing masks either. I recently inquired about a black plague doctor’s mask from the 1600’s on Amazon. Can you believe it? The spouse wasn’t onboard. My argument was that the pandemic hadn’t changed. Yes, it might have a new name, but the ultimate result is the same. So why not wear my mask of choice, or at least one that had been proven worthy centuries ago?

And then to really grind my groot, I read a Yahoo article of a person dressed as a 17^th century doctor roaming the streets of a small town, with the last line of the article reading, “It’s clearly for attention or something like that, because normal people just wouldn’t do that.”Really? it isn’t? How the hell does that lady know what’s normal or not anymore? Plus, that could have been me! Someone stole my idea. (Sad Face that you can’t see hiding behind this red bandanna mask.)

Speaking of normal, since when do I have to start washing my hands? And when did this crazy concept occur in every day social media memes? What happened to the good ol’ days of dirt, grime, and a bit of salmonella under the nails? (Asking for a friend.)

Please don’t get me started on the colored duct tape on the grocery floors. There are arrows and X’s everywhere. It looks like a five-year-old was let loose in the store with a few rolls of tape and told, “Go, have fun!”

Well, I don’t think it’s fun…unless there’s a square. In one line, in one particular store, the kindergartener drew an empty box on the floor with his blue painter’s tape. Needless to say, I refused to stand inside that boy’s box, so I placed my heels together at a ninety-degree angle on the perimeter of the outside of the box. No one is boxing me in while I wait for my sanitized register! Gosh darn it!

The concept of Normal is a constant evolution. It’s change and it’s inevitable. Just ask your 97-year-old Grandparent.

The new norm was women working in factories. At one point, minorities were forced to use different bathrooms, now transgender persons have the opportunity to actually use a bathroom. There used to be a smoking section in restaurants, now there is only curbside pickup. After 9/11, getting practically naked at airports became the new norm. Kids used to go to school, now their teachers are raging alcoholics at home.

Things change. Now, we Lysol the soles of our shoes when we get home. We wear face masks and aren’t allowed within six feet of each other. I don’t even remember the last time I got drunk at a bar and needed to call an Uber to get home. Speaking of which, will all Uber drivers now need conversion vans and only one passenger allowed, seven rows back. (Asking for a friend.)

Change is difficult, but somehow, we’ll figure it out. And with any luck we’ll be able to tell the grandkids about our walk, uphill, both ways, in the rain, while wearing a germ-free full body suit and avoiding the Hunger Games.