No Mask? No Thanks.

Because the mask mandates have been lifted in Ontario as of today, I decided that I would get my hair cut before, on Saturday. I didn't know what my local barber shop was planning to do and I needed a cut, anyway.

I had only been going to this barber shop since last fall, when I was desperate for a decent haircut. I hadn't been to a barber shop in almost a year, opting to cut my own hair, and it showed. I looked awful: shaggy and uneven didn't even begin to describe the mop on my head.

I was never really happy with the place I had gone to, previously, and so I decided to try a barber shop that was fairly new in Barrhaven, having only opened about a year before the pandemic. Not knowing what to expect, I randomly chose someone to cut my hair.

It couldn't be worse than what I had been doing to myself.

As it turned out, the barber was a lovely and charming woman who did a fantastic job. It was the best haircut since early 2019, when my regular barber moved out to Casselman, leaving me somewhat stranded. She had cut my hair for the final time in early May of that year, just before I left for my trip to Korea.

My autumn, 2021 haircut was the best I had had in about two-and-a-half years.

I returned for a second haircut at the end of October and again, last December, just before my trip to Cuba. Again, this barber did a great job and I decided that she would be my new stylist, going forward.

But when DW and I returned from our vacation, the Omicron variant of COVID was raging in Ontario, and so I decided to stay indoors, avoiding shopping malls and restaurants, and only going for groceries when we were absolutely desperate. I put any haircuts on hold.

But by the beginning of February, when Omicron seemed to be settling down, and my hair was once again out of control, I made a visit to my new barber. It turned out that she had contracted the virus and was sick for six weeks, and that she had just returned to the shop a few days earlier.

So here I was, just last Saturday, in need of another haircut, wondering what mask restrictions the shop would be exercising, come Monday (today).

My barber told me that no one, not even the staff, would be required to wear masks. "You can wear a mask if it makes you feel comfortable," she said, "but I, for one, can't wait to be free of my mask."

My heart sank.

As of today, because of the no-mask policy by our provincial government, I'm not going to get my hair cut until the mask regulations return or the pandemic has come to an end. This means no restaurants, no bars, no stores—except for grocery stores, of course, but I plan to go during off hours, to avoid as many maskless people as possible.

For non-grocery items, I'll have to shop online and have it delivered. If that means I can't shop locally, regretfully, so be it.

Doug Ford and his cronies may be tired of mandates but the virus isn't done with us.

My only hope is that the number of COVID cases rises enough to make the government re-introduce the mandates. And that's a terrible thing to hope for.

I'll continue to wear a mask. But for places that allow the unmasked to enter, I have one thing to say:

No thanks.