The fountain of youth in a mask

From eu.staugustine.com/story

By Brian Thompson

OK, folks. I know masks have become a polarizing, hot potato issue. So, I’m not here to lecture about the health benefits or reasons to put them on in order to ward off COVID-19. Rather, I’m here to share one little-known benefit that not everyone realizes about face coverings: They make you younger!

I’m living proof of this. I kid you not.

I don’t know that a lot of research has been done on the topic, but I have all the proof I need. The truth is, they can take at least 25 years off of your age, if not more.

Don’t believe me? Listen to this: It all happened to me at the grocery store while I was wearing a grey mask with black trimming. (Not sure the colouring is the key, but wanted to share that in case.)

I was piling all of my groceries — mostly cookies, ice cream and my weekly ration of beer in a case so big you could carry a bear in it — onto the conveyor belt. 

As the nice cashier slid the behemoth carton across the scanner, she looked up at me and without the slightest hesitation said, “Can I see your ID, please?”

A choir of angels sang and I could hear celestial trumpets playing in the background.

“Could … could you say that one more time?” I replied. “Did you just say, ‘Can I see your ID?'”

She nodded her head. But in a way that seemed to suspect she might have just caught an 18-year-old scofflaw trying to sneak beer through a grocery line by camouflaging it with cookies and mass quantities of ice cream.

“Well, then you sure-as-darn-tootin’ can,” I said handing it to her. “I would like nothing better than to show you my ID. In fact, I cannot WAIT to see your face after you read my birthdate on that-there ID.”

I wanted to tell her this was one of the greatest things to happen to me since I got a pair of parachute pants for Christmas in the ’80s. But that seemed over-the-top.

She took a look, typed it into the register and I swear from beneath her mask I could hear her say, “Oh ... my.” Then to me she said, “Sorry ... here you go. Thank you.” She then looked away quickly, kind of embarrassed.  

Sorry?!? Don’t be sorry. Be ecstatic. Because it was great. It was wonderful. I’m 47, people, and I just got carded at the grocery store! Like I’m some kind of high school scofflaw. I bet I could pull off skateboard tricks in the parking lot. Or say cool things like, “I’m going to drink beer and eat ice cream in my mom’s basement.” Or know what Instagram is. (What is Instagram, everybody?)

It felt good. REALLY good! Partly because much of the week had felt bad. REALLY bad. And I mean literally. The rest of my week had been a pain in the butt. Again, literally.

Sciatica!

Don’t know what sciatica is? Imagine getting struck by lightning in your lower back. Now take that pain, and add to it demons throwing axes at you at the exact moment that you’re struck by lightning. That’s sciatica. Something is pressing or pinching on the sciatic nerve that runs down your backside into your upper thighs. Or in precise medical terms: axe-throwing demons!

It came on suddenly the week before, either from running or working in the yard. For the next couple of days, I walked around whimpering and yelping at each step like I was walking across hot coals.

Dang, this getting old is no fun.

Which, in fact, is the exact thing a colleague walked up and said to me at work one day. Just out of the blue. Not sure if he noticed by hobble, the little cries and whimpers I was giving out or he has my office bugged. But it hurt just as much as the sciatica itself.

I just about turned to him and snapped that he should just mind his own business, only another lightning bolt shot down my back and I toppled over into the bushes.

But getting older! Speak for yourself. I GOT CARDED AT THE GROCERY STORE! Buying beer. At the age of 47! Only thing that could have been better is if she called her manager because she suspected my ID was fake.

How awesome would that have been!?!

I can’t take credit for it. It had to be the mask. Hiding the grimace of pain from the sciatica. And the little bits of grey in my scruffy beard when I haven’t shaved in days. Or muffles the things I say that sound dated like, “I sure wish parachute pants would come back in style.”

What else could explain it? Without it, they used to ask if they could help me to my car. Because with a case of beer that big, an ol’ timer like me could develop a mean bout of sciatica.

Brian Thompson is a former Record staffer and current director of news and information at Flagler College.

https://eu.staugustine.com/story/lifestyle/columns/2020/11/08/brain-thompson-nutshell-fountain-youth-mask/6167327002/