How Many Facemasks is TOO MANY Facemasks?

 Do you remember when you bought your first facemask and tried it on? And you thought There is no way in hell I'm wearing this thing all day! I can barely breathe! 

That was a long time ago in a world far, far away. Once I got over the feeling of being slowly suffocated and found masks that fit properly, I can wear a mask all day and feel just fine. I started out with sticky notes on the edges of my computer screen reminding of the essentials of hygienic mask-wear:

1. Don't touch your face!

2. Stop adjusting the mask every 5 seconds! 

3. If you JUST ADJUSTED the mask, use hand sanitizer!

The key is to find masks that fit your face, don't bend your ears in half, and don't make glasses fog up because nothing says highly competent professional like someone with stickin' out ears, foggy glasses and a mask that either slides up or down when you talk. 

After spending approximately $93847293487203420349023.99 on masks, I finally found the perfect mask. What makes a perfect mask? Well...

1. Extra material on the bridge of the nose to stop gapping and to fit under glasses so I can see where I'm going even when I'm huffing and puffing up and down the stairway.

2. Extra material under the chin to make a soft seal and keep the mask from hiking up or down when I talk.

3. A combination of ear loops and a soft, stretchy neck strap attached to the loops to take the pressure off my ears. That way, nothing is actually behind my ears and contorting them into unnatural shapes. 

4. Your head is probably bigger than you think, so definitely try the adult LG/XL. 

And don't forget filters. Some masks need them, some masks don't. If you can blow out a candle or a match through your mask, you need another layer between you and the next disease vector you encounter in the grocery store. I bought filters to use on trips and when I'm around a lot of people during the day. Otherwise, I use half a coffee filter trimmed or folded to fit in the pocket of my mask.

Now the sticky notes on the edges of my computer screen say:

1. Remember to stop and drink more water because you are always hot in that mask.

2. Turn on the fan! You are HOT in that mask.

3. If you're hot, you're doing something right!

So now that I'm wearing comfortable masks, I can really enjoy not having to wear makeup. Yep. No makeup. What's the point? And with so much of my face covered up, I feel less like people are looking at me...which is a personal problem...but I expend a lot less mental energy worrying about what I look like because you won't recognize me if you see me again anyway. 

Someday we won't have to wear masks all the time...someday. 

MEMES, THY AFFLICTION IS MEMES

Hello, my name is everyone who has a smartphone, and I am addicted to memes. All kinds of memes. My phone is so loaded down with memes it's a wonder it has enough memory left to answer phone calls. Not that I want anyone to call me. The purpose of my phone is to have access to memes wherever those memes are lurking on the internet.

There was a time I didn't think I was so attached to my carefully curated collection of memes, but in one surreal moment, everything changed. I dropped my phone in the toilet at work. 

I never take my phone to the restroom. The idea of all those germs aerosolizing when I flush the toilet and drifting around until they can land on my phone is disgusting and totally avoidable. And to all the people who have dropped their phones in toilets and fished them out...gross! Just gross! Flush it and buy a new phone!

But there I was in the bathroom stall with my stupid phone balanced on top of the toilet paper dispenser. I clipped the corner of the phone with my elbow as I stood up and turned around to flush... and just like that my phone was cartwheeling into the toilet. What are the odds that I would bump it at just the right angle to send it directly into the toilet? 100% that day.

As the phone tumbled through the air my brain screamed MY MEMES! MY MEMES! I needed to save my phone! After years of making fun of people for grabbing their phones out of dirty toilets, I finally understood the horror of losing all the things saved on a phone that was not backed up to the cloud. It was Death. Not literal Death, but an intellectual Death, an existential Death, a Death equal to all the hours I had spent trolling for memes to express certain thoughts and feelings. Death to the laughter and exploration of the deep ironies of my existence in this time and place. 

I can do it, I said to myself. I can save the phone! These hands have cleaned up dogs who rolled in rotten fish guts and poop. These hands have caught vomit from my toddler's mouth rather than let vomit full of Kool Aide, peanut butter, and grape jelly land on my new, white, living room carpet. These hands have wiped baby butts, plucked dead pheasants, squashed spiders, thrown cockroaches out the front door because I couldn't bear to squash them due to the crunch factor, and picked up sticky traps with half-dead mice watching me with frantic eyes accusing me of murder. My hands are no strangers to awful things.

Just as the phone plopped into the toilet and began that graceful back-and-forth motion as it sank below  the surface of the water, I grabbed the phone and hauled it to safety. I burst out of the stall and steaked over to the sink to let the phone drip as the screen darkened and the apps winked out of existence. And then the phone shut down. I wrapped the electronic corpse in paper towels and commenced to disinfect myself from my elbows to my fingertips while hysterically counting to 20 several times.

I saved the phone. I had yanked it out of the toilet so fast, only a few drops of water had gotten inside the case. I had a stash of alcohol wipes for cleaning my glasses and I used them to wage war on any poop germs stuck to the phone. After that, I left all the pieces in front of my little desk fan and hoped for the best. 

Like the trusty little electronic soldier that it is, my phone turned on and rebooted the next day. We have been happily trolling the web for memes ever since. I learned my lesson:

1. Back up the phone every night.

2. Never EVER take the phone to the bathroom at work. 

3. Stop making fun of people who grab their phones out of toilets BUT it's okay to make fun of people for taking their phones into bathrooms in the first place. 

Sooner or later, I know exactly what's going to happen to them.