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I've recently fallen ill. A normal cold, nothing too special. At the college I go to, it's standard procedure for a student to have to visit the "Wellness Center" when they suspect they are sick. It's the only way they're allowed any time away from courses to be "excused."

Eventually, I'd spent enough time away from class. Apparently it's also policy that the aforementioned "wellness center" can only excuse a student for 4 hours. So, given that I was very sick and did not want to be a human plague rat, I made what I thought was a reasonable request. I asked for a mask. It's polite, and stops me from spreading my germs, was my thought process. It was then that the actual Registered Nurse behind the desk told me "Actually, we're anti-mask."

Oh, right. I'd forgotten that wearing a mask was a political thing. I literally just didn't want to cough the common cold on to someone. Thought it'd be the decent thing for me to do. I was lucky that my instructors excused me themselves due to my illness, but it still sticks in my mind. The nurse said that it would hurt the speed of my recovery to wear a mask in classes, but i sit next to other students for literal hours at a time, my focus wasn't on me, it was on THEM! I don't know. Am I crazy? Is this an insane blue-hair liberal thing to do? Is it just some sort of latent covid-era mask PTSD left lingering in the minds of conservative healthcare professionals? I may never know.