Sometimes I get into crazy, mundane conversations. I don’t know how, it just happens.
The other day, I ran into someone I haven’t seen in about two weeks. He went on to explain that he was in New York for a few days and how much he hates to fly.
The conversation took a weird turn when he explained that when he gets onto an airplane, before fastening the seat belt, he puts on a dust mask. After all, when you cram 170 people in a tube for a few hours where people are hacking, sneezing, blowing their nose and breathing stale, recirculated air, planes are nothing more than a flying petri dish.
I rack up about 100,000 air miles a year and have been lucky enough not to catch anything on a plane other than the occasional cold and a miserable seat mate.
He got me thinking about whether or not I should take his que. After all, in Japan when someone has a cold, they always wear a mask to avoid spreading the wealth. Here in America however, I think the presence of someone wearing a mask wouldn’t be so conventional.
“Oh my God, he must have some strange disease!”
“Look at that idiot.”
“Who wears a mask on a plane?”
“I don’t want to sit next to him.”
“Terrorist!”
I don’t necessarily consider myself a germaphobe, but people have their ways of grossing me out at times. But at least I’m not alone. This morning I noticed one of my Facebook friends posted this, “I can’t imagine standing a chocolate fountain at Golden Corral with a bunch of random people and their kids, with everyone dipping stuff in there and eating it.”
I couldn’t agree more, and it’s why I don’t eat at buffets.
Swimming pools also freak me out. Diapers, on little people and the elderly, leak. And when they leak in the pool, they’re leaking in the water I’m cooling off in. Just this past weekend, one swimming pool at the club I belong to was shut down for a few hours after a diaper incident.
“Ah, chlorine will kill everything.”
Chlorine may kill the germs, masks may stop them from entering my body and skipping the buffet may save me from scurvy. But there’s not a thing in the world that will stop me from thinking about it.
Source: https://accumed.com/kn95-mask-for-sale-respirator-safety-mask-k1.html