A woman on the edge, Wednesday 15 April 2020, Day 28

Confusion in her eyes that says it all. She's lost control. And she's clinging to the nearest passer-by.

When I go to the shops I see a lot people with a variety of masks on, surgical masks, cloth masks, Bridget Jones’s pants masks (by the way g- strings don’t work, well mine do as I have a big arse), masks made out of scarfs, the other day I even saw a woman wearing a riot helmet with a Perspex shield for a mask, she was pure scary and nae-body was within four meters of her never mind two!

I totally get that we are living in strange times and I truly understand that people are paranoid, scared, panicking and thankfully unlike me, could be starting to go a bit snooker loopy, pot the red and screw back!

Now I am definitely no a lightweight but yesterday you could have knocked me down with a feather. Wait till I tell you this, so I went to the shops and got in the queue, I was behind a woman I would say in her thirties and her child who was maybe three. I am looking at them and thinking there’s something no right here, but I couldn’t just put my finger on it.

Anyway, I throw a pound coin on the ground in front of me, I know for a fact no one is going to try to steal it and it gave me the chance to move to the right a bit, pick it up and get a good look. Well for the love of the wee man, never in my life did I ever think I would see something like this.

The woman had created a mask from the packaging of an Easter Egg you know the see through plastic that holds the egg together and she had used both bits one on front of her face and one on the back of her head, held together with elastic bands, and like a mini egg the wean had the same!

Oh my fooking god, was this an ingenious idea by a genius or the work of a woman on the edge. The wean looked pure traumatised and every time they took a breath the mask steamed up in the inside, the poor thing could hardly see, their wee face was pure red with heat, and the elastic bands were turning their ears purple. The woman didn’t look as traumatised, but her colouring was the same.

What if they collapsed from the heat, would I call an ambulance or take a COVID risk and in an act of braveness rip the masks off their faces? If I wasn’t in a queue, I would have paced to mull it over. I decided I would rip the masks off, but I needed to protect myself, so I slipped my bra off and fastened it across my mouth ready to jump into action. Luckily I had on a nice colourful bra and not a pure grey minging one otherwise it wouldn’t be happening.

The woman turned round, looked at me, pulled the plastic off her and the weans head and said “why the hell didn’t I think of that” I realised that she was a woman on the edge, so when we got into the shop I slipped a pre-mix G&T can in her shopping trolley, from a distance of course.