Item

My first mask

Title (Dublin Core)

My first mask

Description (Dublin Core)

This is a photo of the first mask I bought/used when the pandemic began. I bought this mask a few months into the pandemic however, as I didn't feel comfortable leaving my house in the early days, I think I bought this around April 2020 if I'm not mistaken. I remember I was at Wal-Mart as my dad told me that they were selling masks there, at the time there was a shortage of masks and people were panic buying. I remember stores were packed, and people were almost exclusively buying toilet paper - I seriously think that's probably the weirdest part of the pandemic, people were also scalping toilet paper on Facebook marketplace, it was like a secondary currency (Not really but it was a precious resource apparently). They were selling masks at the register, in plastic bags for $1.49 I think; in all honesty I think I would of been better off not buying the mask but the atmosphere of panic kind of made me feel like an idiot for not having a mask. When I opened it up in my car I realized it was literally just a cut up black T-shirt; it was transparent, it didn't wrap around your face, it just hung there. Me being an idiot, I used it for a good solid month, it's a miracle I didn't catch COVID-19. I can't believe that they would sell that to people in Wal-Mart, I mean I think I was one of the only people who bought one so I can't be too upset; but still, people were desperate for any semblance of protection, and such a mega-corp like Wal-Mart felt fine profiting off of those anxieties. I'm not trying to insinuate that they should care, because they didn't get rich by being ethical.

Date (Dublin Core)

Creator (Dublin Core)

Type (Dublin Core)

Photograph

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

English
English
English

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

04/18/2021

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

04/24/2021

Item sets

This item was submitted on April 18, 2021 by Padraic Cohen using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://covid-19archive.org/s/archive

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