DISCLAIMER: This has not been thoroughly tested in a randomized-control-group clinical study. I also have said *nothing* to the surgeon general.
Yesterday, I went out on the ice to get some flour. It was exhilarating. Me? In the 21st century? Going to get a foodstuff for my family? In inclement weather? Laura Ingalls Wilder prepared me well for this.
Emotionally.
Laura Ingalls Wilder did not prepare me tactically.
Luckily, I’ve walked on ice before. So when I got down the block and realized the sidewalk—and to a greater extent, the street itself—was covered in ice akin to the clear coats on a stock car, I knew what to do. Gently pitter patter the feetsies. Keep the weight on the center of the shoes. Walk on the grass where possible. And in so doing, I reached the neighborhood convenience store, where the sign outside advertises: “Milk. Bread. ice. Eggs.” and ice really is for some reason uncapitalized.
But there was a problem.
I’d forgotten my mask at home.
Now, the dude behind the counter at the convenience store has been, to put it generously, mask-optional this whole pandemic. The mask is doing a very good job of protecting his chin from the coronavirus, but not necessarily him, and certainly not the rest of us. It’s a quick-in-quick-out situation, and my mask helps pick up the slack, but I was not in possession, at that moment, of a mask.
I’d worn a coat, though, so I figured I could just tie the coat around my face, which I did, and that it would stay on there fine until I’d gotten out of their with flour, which it did.
But I discovered something on the way out.
I was way warmer with a coat around my face than on my torso.
Some of this may have been the type of coat. It’s warm, but it’s not a full-on winter coat. The sweatshirt worn beneath it was doing most of the heavy lifting in the first place.
Some of this may have been that I didn’t grab a hat. I was in a hurry. It was someone’s birthday! And so my ears were especially cold.
But still. My face was warm. My ears were warm. My neck was warm. It was a comfortable walk back home, aside from juggling the flour hand-to-hand every block or so because I’d neglected to wear gloves and desperately craved my pant pockets.
Which leads me to ask:
Are we wearing coats wrong?
Postscript: No I did not just invent scarves I’m talking about wearing your coat around your face these are different things.
