Interesting Tidbits: Masks

 It's sick season, folks, and at work, I'm the last man standing. I'm the only one of the instructors at work not to have gotten either of the seasonal flu or the God-cursed stomach flu that turns your bowels to goop and makes you shit, vomit, or both simultaneously for days at a time. A coworker of mine spent long hours sitting on the porcelain throne with her face in a bucket. It's almost poetic.
 To top it off, hay fever is coming about, with symptoms very similar to that of a regular cold. I've never had pollen allergies, but the local pollen and Canadian pollen are quite different, and allergies can develop. So I find myself either a victim to hay fever or the common cold. 
 Hence the mask.
 Unless you work at a hospital, you don't really see these much in North America, do you? And certainly not from someone who's already sick. Japan's quite different.

There are a number of reasons people could be wearing a flu-mask here.
- You're avoiding sickness.
- You're sick.
- You're keeping the bottom of your face warm.
- You've got a nasty pimple.
 Yo, I'm serious! Those are the main reasons. You'd think the first would be obvious, but the others are almost inconceivable in the western world, right?
 Being sick is actually the main reason for wearing the mask. Simply put, in this city where personal space can sometimes be hard to come by, it's common courtesy here to try your best not to spread your germs around. Covering your mouth with your hand while sneezing just puts them on your hand and contaminates the things you touch. Sneezing into your sleeve is kind of gross. Handkerchiefs are kind of dated. Just sneeze into the mask!
 And given that one person out of, I'd say, six, right now is wearing one of these, it's kind of easy for people who want to keep warm or hide their facial hygiene problems to just wear one too without looking strange. Simple enough, eh?