I, for one, applaud Chicago officials for reinstating the city’s indoor mask mandate.
First off, as a person who struggles with IFH (Intense Face Handsomeness), I’ve long hated walking around with my visage fully exposed. It cuts into the profits at my subscription website HotHuppkeFace.com. (It’s a “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” situation.)
But more importantly, an indoor mask mandate is a smart public health decision. The number of COVID-19 cases in Chicago and across the country is rising thanks to the more contagious delta variant and the more obnoxious subset of humans who refuse to get vaccinated.
So while it may be only me and my fellow IFH sufferers who are happy to strap the masks back on, it’s certainly in everyone’s best interest. Which brings us to the first problem: For some, caring about what’s in everyone’s best interest has become uncool, replaced by “acting like a large human baby who cares only about himself (or herself, but mostly himself, if we’re being honest).”
The presence of these large human babies understandably makes the owners of restaurants, bars and stores feel a bit trepidatious about the indoor mask mandate’s return. It makes them wonder how they’re going to get back to enforcing a rule some protested in the first place and most thought was gone for good.
I have some sensible ideas to help worried business owners, but first, let’s go over the Chicago mask mandate rules and why they’re necessary.
Starting Friday, everyone 2 years old and up — whether vaccinated or unvaccinated — has to wear a mask in public indoor spaces. That includes shops, fitness centers, restaurants and bars. If you’re inside, your mask is up, and if it’s over your mouth but below your nose, everyone thinks you’re dumb. (I don’t make the rules, folks.)
In eateries and drinkeries, masks can come off to eat or drink. If you’re on a restaurant patio or in some other outdoor space, you won’t need a mask, unless the owners say otherwise.
Generally speaking, health officials don’t want people walking around crowded indoor spaces without masks, as that increases the potential spread of the virus if someone happens to be infected.
I can already hear the whiny complaints: “But I’m vaccinated! Why do I need to wear a mask?”
First off, don’t worry, I’ve called a WHAAAAAAmbulance for you. Second, here’s the deal, for perhaps the 5 millionth time: You’re vaccinated. That’s excellent. You’re well protected. But you’re not 100% protected, and there are still too many willfully unvaccinated people tromping about. You could still get COVID-19, particularly the delta variant. More importantly, you could carry the virus asymptomatically, and there are immunocompromised people who can’t get the vaccine or who are still more highly susceptible to the virus, and there are kids under 12 who can’t yet get vaccinated.
So by wearing a mask, you’re making your already low risk even lower, and you’re protecting others. You’re also setting a good example, which is even cooler than having Intense Face Handsomeness.
With that said, allow me to help Chicago-area business owners with mask enforcement.
The easiest way to handle a maskless customer is to say: “Sorry, you have to wear a mask indoors. We have a box of them if you need one.”
If the person says no, you simply say: “Cool. Get out.”
That would be easy for me, personally, to say, but I don’t own a business. And people who do own businesses are understandably loath to anger or alienate potential customers.
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So I suggest city officials assemble a volunteer army of “Citizen Mask Enforcers” to be placed in bars, restaurants and shops. They would wear bright yellow shirts with the words “MASK IT UP” on the front and “CARING IS SEXY” on the back, and they would carry the burden of telling maskless patrons to kindly tell their story walking.
I volunteer as tribute. After more than a year of handsomely scowling at maskless meatheads from behind my mask, it would be an honor and privilege to serve.
To avoid any physical confrontations, a maskless customer would be allowed entry, but only if he or she (again, probably he) agreed to wear a comically large dunce cap and sit in a special reserved area in the alley behind the establishment.
As a final line of defense, Citizen Mask Enforcers would carry air horns. In the event a maskless person refuses to mask up and refuses to wear the dunce cap in the alley, the enforcer would follow that person around blasting the air horn until the person was seated. If he or she (definitely he) got up to use the bathroom, the air horn would sound again until he returned to his seat.
It’s a simple, elegant solution to a nagging problem that is only a nagging problem because some people are fine with others dying so they don’t have to put a small piece of cloth over their nose and pie hole.
I look forward to Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago public health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady deputizing me and my fellow volunteers.
My handsome face is covered, and my air horn is at the ready.