Mukilteo Beacon - Your Hometown News Source

My shorts were right where I left them last fall, rolled up on a bottom shelf. The warm weather had sent me off on a scavenger hunt for comfortable clothes that didn’t resemble pajamas. Call it a momentary spark of self-respect. It’ll pass.

And, with emotion vacillating between serendipity and sheepishness, on that same shelf I found a half-hidden box of protective face masks. My sheepish side is strong, actually.

I bought them a year ago, when I was chauffeuring an immunocompromised friend back and forth from chemotherapy and other appointments. I got them back in the day when we could...