Several minor observations after my trip to Costco this morning:
Costco was one of the first places here, if not the first, to require masks. I've been there probably half a dozen times since that went into effect. Today for the first time, I noticed some Costco employees wearing clear face shields instead of masks. The kind of face shield you might wear for grinding or something. Totally open around the sides and bottom. I suppose it would stop the physical material from a sneeze or something, but I'm thinking it's not very effective for anything else. I'm wondering if employees are complaining about breathing problems with masks, and Costco gave them an out with the face shields. To me, that just kind of gives the impression of "mask theater" versus really wanting people to wear masks for protection of themselves and others.
Usually this time of year, Costco has a big display of Summer recreational gear like kayaks, inflatables, float tubes, camping gear, etc. There has been practically nothing (at least at my Costco, and river floating is big here) on display the last couple of times I've been there. Just wondering if there is any correlation to people not doing those activities as much now. Though they are outdoor activities where distancing is easy. Anyway, I thought it was abnormal.
Lastly, though, as I said, I'd been to Costco plenty of times since the mask thing, for some reason as I was walking the aisles today and seeing all the masked shoppers walking around in status quo mode, I couldn't help but be hit with the thought of "Dystopian normal" - almost like I was a character in some Science Fiction book I was reading about a post-pandemic or other disaster world. If you would have told me I'd be interacting with people in a masked world as normal, I would have thought you had just watched Bladerunner or something. Anyway, just a random weird thought I had.