6 September 2020 — 1731 mdt

Wear your damn mask, cover your damn nose

Let’s confront store employees who flout mask-up rules,
and let’s file formal complaints with our boards of health

At Walmart this morning, the checker wore his mask below his nose in defiance of our governor’s mask-up directive. I confronted him. Yesterday, at Super 1, my bagger also wore his mask below his nose. I confronted him, too.

Super 1, and not just in downtown Kalispell, is becoming notorious for letting its employees violate the letter as well as the spirit of Gov. Bullock’s directive. I’ve received reports from trusted sources that this scoffmask behavior has occurred all summer, which means the stores’ managers know about it and either don’t care or actually condone it.

At Super 1, I told the bagger “That mask also covers your nose.” He politely covered his nose, bagged my purchases, moved to the next checkout counter, and promptly exposed his nostrils. Two young women bagging groceries also sported naked schnozes.

My checker wore his mask properly. After paying for my goods, I said to him, “I wish your employees would mask-up properly.” He replied, “So do I.” I hope he finds a job in a safer store.

Does the Flathead’s board of health know about his? Of course it does. Has it ordered, or even just urged, the stores to comply fully with Montana’s mask-up mandate? Perhaps. But the board lacked the sand to prevent the Northwest Montana Fair from being held, so it would not surprise me if its responses to complaints about mask-up violations amount to polite little reminders — “Please, oh pretty pretty please” — that a mask-up mandate is in force.

It’s bad enough that if we want to feed ourselves, we must suck in the bacteria and virus loaded exhalations from ignoramuses and selfish libertarians who waltz through our stores barefaced and smirking. Let’s not allow them to be joined by store employees who thumb their uncovered noses at their customers.

I’m going to complain in writing to the managers of these stores, and I’m going to file written complaints with the Flathead health board. In these situations, all turning the other cheek gets you is another black eye. I’m fighting back.

I encourage you to fight back, too. To borrow from Barry Goldwater, timidity in the presence of mask scofflaws is no virtue. Confronting barefaced employees is no vice.