To mask or not to mask - A BIG QUESTION

I'm tired of COVID-19 and its relentless destructive pursuit of the human race. I'm tired of wondering if I pick up a can in the grocery store that the coronavirus is waiting there, laughing, ready to clutch my fingers in its stranglehold and come home with me to make me sick, and from what I've been reading, possibly for a very long time. I'm afraid (and to be honest, hateful) of people who don't wear masks in Publix, Target, wherever. I guess they think they're God's chosen and won't get COVID-19. Maybe they think that no government or store has the right to tell them what to do. Maybe they just don't think because it takes too much energy or maybe they've never tried it before.   

I don't like wearing a mask all day at work. I don't like wearing a mask when I enter a store. But I do it because I don't want COVID-19 tearing at my lungs, heart, kidneys, brain. I do it because I want to respect other people's right to not get COVID-19 just in case I'm one of the walking asymptomatic people.      

I read a disturbing story in the newspaper the other day. A woman who owns an ice cream shop in downtown St. Petersburg had just reopened for inside dining. She witnessed six young women sitting around a table, sharing one ice cream cone between them, one lick at a time. I guess these young women thought that COVID-19 can't get them because they're young, beautiful, and oh-so-cool. The woman who owns the ice cream shop closed the inside dining after that incident and because of all the people hanging outside her establishment (social distancing? what the hell is that?), some of whom were drunk, probably coming from one of the many craft beer places populating downtown St. Petersburg.  

Just in case you didn't know - COVID-19 is not an old people's disease. It can take down anyone. An 11-year-old Florida boy just died of COVID-19. And even if you don't die, medical professionals are finding that the coronavirus can make you sick for weeks, months, possibly damage you for the rest of your life.

So, mask up, even if you don't like to be told what to do. Pure freedom is an illusion. You've been told what to do by someone in authority since the day you were born. It's not rocket science - just put a mask on your face. The life you save may be your own or your grandma's or your child's.