Something changed at the start of the school year. A few months ago, when we left the house, we went through three rooms, three bags, three pockets of jackets. “Where are the masks?” “ Today, in every home, the box of masks has its own place, just like the paper towel roll. Often in the hall, on the cabinet on which we throw keys and mail. We left another in the car as we already kept a supermarket cart token there.
The new normal life took hold without even realizing it. When elementary school parents saw it on the list of school supplies “A box of 50 masks”, none of them asked themselves “masks of what?” “. In the supermarket, a child pulls on his mother’s sleeve: “Mom, there’s the lady from the lab over there!” “ We give him a little sign. By dint of being tested, we recognize her as quickly as the baker.
When you put your hand in your pocket, you don’t know if the thing you’re touching is an old mask or a used handkerchief. The hygiene of the masks that we caught last year with two fingers, as explained by the white coats on TV, leaves more and more to be desired. “This one, is it white-white, gray-white or gray-gray?” “, wonders Damien, father of three, when he catches one in the morning. “There are masks so dirty that we would not want to wear them in briefs”, a friend told me.
Ephemeral return of the north wind
In a year of barrier gestures, we found a place for these objects from the medical world, we desecrated their hygiene. We even ended up finding advantages for them. “They will say to themselves that I did not recognize them”, Stephanie now thinks when she ignores people in the street she wants to dodge. Precisely, about the meetings, the historic camp of anti-kisses who believed that the Covid-19 had rid them of this practice forever, rejoiced a little too quickly. The kiss returned with the first vaccinated, who, failing to be able to brandish plane tickets, had enough to show the advantages of the injection. However, some went back as soon as the Delta variant appeared.
In this confusion, “At work, when we meet, the arrival of one elbow forward facing the other brandishing his fist forward gives the impression of endless parts of rock-paper-chisel”, observes Ronan, company manager in Brest. The novelty of the start of the school year is no longer the way of greeting – the hello checks have long since passed from high school classes to Rotary clubs – but to no longer feel obliged to waste a quarter of an hour in justifying your choice .
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