Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Hair In Your Mouth and Other Hazards of Wearing a Mask!

 

Remember when we all thought the CoVid pandemic would end in a week or two. The weeks stretched out into months and my goodness we'll be coming up on a year. Please Lord no!!  Let it end sooner.

Anyway, we all thought we can do this…what's a week or two making masks for friends who were in health care or high risk jobs.  I blithely went to Hobby Lobby to purchase fabric for my daughter who lives in California where the numbers were astronomical for CoVid cases, and for a niece who works in health care and relatives who are first responders. I made cute masks with chickens and hearts on them.  Something to keep everyone upbeat and not worried.

Cue, six months later and I am scrambling for more fabric because my county ordered everyone to wear a mask when going out or in, everywhere except your home.  Then before that even when businesses got shut down so did Hobby Lobby  and I could not purchase more fabric or the all important elastic. Do you know how hard it was to find elastic?

Anyway…now the stores are open, you can find fabric but still no elastic so I instead I made ties for my masks which I prefer anyway so my ears don't get sore.  But wearing masks day in and day out has presented a few issues. I know we're doing this to stay safe and keep others safe and believe me I agree, because my own brother landed up in the hospital because of this and my son lost his job because he's a fitness instructor and many of them are still closed.  This whole virus stinks!  But I also know you have to laugh about something and keep our morale up or we'll all go insane.

So one of the side effects of wearing a mask and maybe I experience this more because I have long hair and still prefer wearing the tie masks.  Every morning before I go to work or on Sundays headed to church, I tie one on…meaning a mask. (though I wish I could get by with starting my day with alcohol.) I have to remember to put my hair up in a ponytail or risk hair getting stuck in the ties of my mask which if you have long hair and get it stuck or pulled you know how painful that can be.  And at some point I feel something tickle my mouth and realize that some silly hair has come off my head and gotten stuck in side my mask. It drives me nuts until I can get home and pull it out.

So last Sunday morning my husband and I were on our way to church and I had my mask on and made it through church service. We then needed some items from the store so we stopped there on the way home. By this time my fabric mask was pretty humid so much to say it was getting rather damp on the inside from talking through it.

 As we got back in the car from the store, and I was driving… I felt a familiar tickle in my mouth. Oh great, I had gotten a hair stuck inside my mask.  Somehow thankfully it had not bothered me during church or the grocery but now it was driving me nuts.  I pulled off my mask because we were back in the car, but because I was driving and because I had just come from the grocery store, I was not going to touch my mouth with my hands until I could wash them good.  I had used hand sanitizer but I am kind of a freak about washing my hands these days.  Even with the mask off, I could not get rid of the hair that was now lodged in my mouth.  And I started gagging. My husband asked if he could do anything, but talking and gagging as you know don't really go together.  I was driving trying not to hit anything as I coughed and gagged my way down the street.  Luckily it was Sunday morning and traffic was very light.  I worked up some spit and thought, gross, I'm just going to swallow it so I stop gagging.  Guess what, you cannot swallow a long hair in your mouth on purpose!  That made me gag all the more.  We were on the home stretch and there was no where to pull over, roll down  my window and just spit. Also spitting into the wind is not advisable in a moving car.  Now as a cat owner I now have a better understanding of why cats cough up hairballs!  I began coughing up a hairball much to my embarrassment and my husband's chagrin and finally got into the driveway where I immediately stopped, opened my car door and well… you know.  And yet STILL I could not rid my mouth and my upper throat of that stupid hair!  I rushed inside, washed my hands and finally got it dislodged from my mouth!  Boy did I have a better understanding of what my cats go through and they don't have fingers! 

Since then I have been more careful of shaking out my mask before tying it on and brushing any errant hairs out before pulling it up.  Once was enough and gross.

I have a bad feeling that we're stuck in masks for a while longer and so am having to make peace with wearing a mask necklace around my neck all the time. The ties at least let me let it hang from my neck instead of my ears!  I hope and pray this will all end soon and everyone stay well. Until then I am willing to do my part to help people stay safe and myself as well and I've am making a plan to brush my cats more often so they don't develop so many hair balls.  Ugg!