Masked all day. No so bad.

On Wednesday, I was trapped in a seemingly endless TSA bubble – airport and airplane – for 19 consecutive hours.

On Friday, I was trapped again for 16 consecutive hours.

Friday’s bubble from hell included numerous delays, an aborted landing seconds before touching down, a broken jetway that trapped us on the plane for an extra 30 minutes, and an all-out sprint across the Denver airport, making my connecting flight by the skin of my teeth only to sit on the runway for an hour while waiting for thunderstorms to pass.

Those were two very long days.

But here’s the thing:

Other than the occasional meal, I was masked for the entire time. Hour upon hour upon hour of wearing a mask.

It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t all that bad, either.

If you’re refusing to wear a mask in locations that require you to be masked, or even if you’re complaining about recent mask mandates in response to the Delta variant and rising infection rates and hospitalizations, grow up.

Shut up.

Find some goddamn mettle.

Think about someone other than yourself.

Be better.

Wearing a mask is annoying and inconvenient, but it’s hardly a sacrifice.

My father was drafted and fought in Vietnam.

My grandfather fought the Nazis in Europe.

I don a mask to prevent the spread of a disease that has killed twice as many Americans as World War II and Vietnam combined.

I’m hardly doing anything, and I’m helping to save lives.

If you find wearing a mask too onerous, too upsetting, too irritating, or too restrictive, please take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself how you ended up so selfish, so weak, so callous, and so unpatriotic.

Then fix it. Be better for your own sake and for the sake of your community and your country.