Let me start by saying I’m in Scotland so this isn’t about masks per se, but about the whole silly dance we are being made to do in order to go about our lives at the moment.
I went to a shopping centre today and won't be back.
It’s the first time I’ve worn a mask for any longer than a quick run into the local coop. I was probably in the centre for an hour and a half but there was sweat pouring down my neck. I felt suffocated and silenced. Hated it.
My baby looked at me like I was a monster and my toddler couldn’t hear me when I talked.
But it wasn’t just masks that were the issue. There was a ludicrous one way system, which makes absolutely no sense to me if we are wearing masks and social distancing. Then every shop had a makeshift entry and exit and their own one way system which no one was observing.
At every turn I was being monitored by security guards, eyeballing me in anticipation of a wrongdoing, ready to pounce.
Almost every shop had a guard on duty forcing you to rub gel on your hands and that of my child before entering.
There were queues everywhere. All but one set of toilets shut, so queue for that too, and toilets themselves as dirty as ever because so many people using the same ones and no cleaning.
Inexplicably in most shops all but one set of tills were shut, again forcing people to congregate in long queues.
All the restaurants were again inexplicably closed apart from, yep, McDonalds and Costa. Both under small enclaves at the back of the centre. But in them you are allowed to take your mask off and eat off a table more or less. But in the main, high roofed wide open walkways of the centre, the mask must go back on.
The shops had little stock.
When I dared approach an M&S assistant to ask for a size (with a visor on like all the rest of the assistants at an angle that perfectly channels their exhalations directly at the person they’re talking too) I was barked at as if I was a naughty schoolgirl to the extent that I put the item back on the rack and walked out without buying anything.
Does anyone else think this is all utterly ludicrous?
Shops will not survive this.
We are all adults with our own minds and perfectly able to manage our selves. Why make masks mandatory if we then have to do all this makeshift posturing to appear to be avoiding each other when really we are being herded closer together.
As someone who you might consider a “hobby shopper” as in it’s one of my pastimes (and I’m not interested in any opinions about having a better hobby, if there weren’t millions like me there wouldn’t be any shops at all). I’m someone who will browse and buy, will pick up bits I don’t really need but just want. I will spend my money happily- if the experience gives me pleasure.
But now I think it’s going to be online for me. I won’t be back at the shopping centre. I won’t be visiting our city centre either as it’s just the same.