Real-world Mask Use

(This belongs in my Random Eikaiwa blog, but it's too political to put it there without annotation.)

Alfeo: "Why are you looking at my neck?"

Betty: "Sorry. I'm not a vampire, just wondering if you have a tracheostomy."

Alfeo: "Huh? Oh. You mean why is my mask down around my neck?"

Betty: "Not meaning to be rude or anything."

Alfeo: "Just sarcastic is all."

Betty: "No. Seriously. Masks are sometimes used to protect stomas."

Afleo: "Nothing like that. I just forgot to pull it back up over my face. There. Is that better?"

Betty "Yes. Covering both the mouth and the nose is much more effective at blocking potential vectors."

Alfeo: "True."

Betty: "So why do you pull it down?"

Alfeo: (Breathes through the mask.) "Haaahhhh."

Betty: "Oh. Your glasses get foggy."

Alfeo: "Yep. All steamed up. And that makes it hard to read the addresses on the mail I have to deliver. Which kind of defeats the purpose of the glasses."

Betty: "I see."

Alfeo: "So I pull the mask down when no one's around. And then I sometimes forget to pull it back up."

Betty; "What do you do when people are around?"

Alfeo: "Take the glasses off."

Betty: "Then how do you read the addresses?"

Alfeo: "Slowly. And when the address is in fine print like this one --"

Betty: "Wow! That's tiny! I have a hard time reading that with my contacts in."

Alfeo: "Yeah. So I lift the glasses up to read it. It takes extra time, but it allows me to keep the mask on when people are around."

Betty: "Why do people print addresses so tiny?"

Alfeo: "I don't know. Maybe the address was too long for the label? The people who write the addressing software didn't want to take the time to deal with really long addresses?"

Betty: "Why would systems engineers do that?"

Alfeo: "Deadlines. Speaking of which, I have to get back to work."

Betty: "I'd better get out of your way so you can work fast. It looks like you still have a lot of mail to deliver today."

Alfeo: "Thanks. I do."