Things NOT to do while wearing a mask and gloves

When out in public recently, I've been experimenting with how far I can go while wearing a mask and gloves. People, especially kids, stare. Not a little passing stare, but eyes locked, head turning as they walk away. I can't really fault the kids, with their natural curiosity and ability to ask the questions us adults are too scared to ask anymore. "Mommy, why does that man have a mask on?" They stare, they point, but they don't judge; they're just curious. I haven't spoken to any of them or told them that I'm sick, I just let their parents take a cursory glance and try to make up their own reasons for why I have on a surgical mask and non-latex gloves.
It's the adults that make me feel like a pariah and draw out the self-contentiousness from my soul. Walking around a store while full grown adults stare at me, or purposefully avoid coming near me is disturbing. If they want to know what's wrong, I really don't mind explaining. I'll talk their ear off about it. It's not a happy story, which upsets people, even people who don't know me. But I'll tell them. It's the ones who don't ask but judge that get under my skin. The ones who look, and avoid me like I have the plague. To be fair, I am doing the same thing, just with some equipment and not acting so obvious about it. I feel great when I am somewhere, and there is someone there who doesn't treat me any different than someone without a mask. But that hasn't happened too much. Fortunately for me the mask and gloves come off on Feb. 6th. One week.

So I've compiled a list of things that I really really really wish I could bring myself to do while in a store while I still have the mask and gloves. I'm not a troublemaker with strangers by nature (its different with folks I know, especially those I think I can get away with stuff), but maybe in the next week I'll gather some courage and try to do one or two of these.

1. Cough violently, making hacking, gross sounds. Kind of what I did during the pneumonia days. This will get the attention of anyone around me, and will guarantee an entire section of restaurant for Ti and myself.

2. When kids stare at me, walk up to them and tell them that it's their fault I have to wear a mask. It's cruel and mean. And I'll catch hell from their parents. This one I probably won't do.

3. Walk up to adults that stare, pull down the mask and sneeze. I mean, what would you do if you were in a store and the guy in the mask walked up next to you and sneezed. People do it all the time who are actually sick, and don't have the hardware to prove it, it may be a little fun. I'd only do this to people who glare at me for more than 5 seconds or so.

If anyone has any more ideas for fun things to do while wearing a mask and gloves out in public, let me know. This is all I can really think of.

I'll say it again if I hadn't said it before: Since the cancer hasn't finished me off yet, the wedding planning might. I got into a fight with my mother today about the planning. About things I don't want to care about but because I seem to have lost control over the wedding that Ti and I are paying for, so I tend to fly off the handle about these things really, extremely easy. All of my patience is needed elsewhere, and I don't have the strength to deal with the rest of my life and fighting with people other than Ti about the wedding. I'm getting better, I'm just not there yet.

So tonight, instead of Ti and I having an enjoyable evening after her returning from a week away on a work trip, we get to make lots of phone calls and try to deal with what happened this afternoon. I feel horrible because of the fight, and those feelings melt from my anger into the depression that has been sitting on the edges for the past few weeks. It's not as bad as it sounds, but life handed me a lemon today, and damn, I misplaced the juicer.

I'll talk to you all later. Tomorrow things will be better. They sure as hell better not get any worse.