It was the first truly warm sunny spring day in the Northern Virginia area, so I was thrilled to fire up the Triumph Bonneville for the 25-minute ride to work.  There weren't many people out at 6:30 A.M., and I needed to focus on my riding skills, so I wasn't doing any sight-seeing.  But by evening, with temperatures in the eighties and the sun still well up in the sky, there was time to take in the view of a beautiful spring afternoon with the population coming out of hiding. 

A motorcycle, especially one with an upright sitting position, gives you an unmatched view of the world around.  You actually look down into cars.  It would have been beautiful, except that everywhere I looked, I saw the absurdity of the face masks that seem to be growing larger by the hour.  Was that a beautiful woman alone in a BMW convertible, top down, with a mask on?  Everywhere along open paths and sidewalks, people were walking, jogging, running, and pedaling furiously, all with masks on.  Some of the masks had grown so large that they covered from the chin to just under the eyes.  And then it dawned on me: "FACE DIAPER!"  And I couldn't stop laughing.  Seriously, I nearly dumped my motorcycle.

Now, I know some people are saying, "What's it to you if some people choose to wear face masks?"  Because something this absurd cannot continue into the summer heat unless it becomes a mandate.  What will I do if the governor mandates that to work or go out in public, I must wear a mask?  And our governor, Ralph Northam, has been among the most aggressive of the blue-state governors in absurd restrictions.  Add to that that we know he is a fan of masks, as in college he often wore a blackface mask and sometime a white mask with matching robe, if you know what I mean.  So when people are doing a patently foolish thing, I feel it is my duty to point it out.

If you recall the history of the COVID-19 crisis, we were told well into April that masks were of no value to protect ourselves.  But as a caller to a popular talk show recently pointed out, you can't maintain a state of fear very long without visual cues.  We were told that dump trucks would be hauling the bodies out of hospitals to be buried in mass pits in Central Park as the hospitals disintegrated into living hells.  None of this happened, so "The Mask" has become a symbol to represent the perpetual fear and horror that cannot and must not end until Trump is removed from the White House.

Saul Alinsky may have gotten his politics wrong, but his tactics were dead on.  Humor and mockery are an effective way to defeat your opponents, so from now on, each and every one of us should refer to the face mask as the "face diaper."  You will need a face diaper only if a lot of you-know-what is coming out of your mouth.