Alabama: COVID-19 Unfolding: Part 8888: The Alabama Welcome Mask

 

Alabama mask. March 2021.

 

 I LOVE THIS. 

On my way back to Birmingham from a COVID-chaste weekend in New Orleans, I stopped at the Alabama Welcome Center on Interstate 59 northeast of Meridian, Mississippi. 

My mission was to find a map of Birmingham. This was a fail.

But I spied a cozy bed of blue masks enveloped in clear plastic. "Are these free?" I asked the Welcome Center attendant? "Yes!" She replied.

I so wanted to take two because of the masks' cheery blue hue and because the friendly weave of their cotton fabric promised to be as soft as a well-loved t-shirt. 

I only took one of the pretties, which I now regret. Would taking two have been too greedy? I think not. My imaginary passenger, who waited in the car while I sought a map, surely needed one, too.

I wore the Alabama mask for the first time on Friday, my laundry day. 

It was as soft and soothingly snug as it promised it would be.

I want another one. That is my new mission.