Kingston, ON – A Queen’s Masters student who’s been spotted on multiple occasions maskless and wearing a face shield upside down like a cute little pope hat seems to think the incorrectly worn PPE is doing something for him.
“I know it’s upside down,” says Adam Tavares, his face shield gently waffling in the afternoon breeze. “But don’t worry. I always pull it on when I feel the presence of coronavirus.”
Tavares went on to list several public areas he considers high-risk enough to don the shield, like a vintage record shop, smaller gastropubs, or his “super sensitive but way hot” girlfriend’s house. Only in low-risk environments does he flip the shield upside down and wear it like a little satellite dish for his sweet, bald head.
But not everyone trusts Tavares’s judgement. He has been publicly shamed on multiple occasions, including a rather terse conversation at the grocery store with a woman who raised concerns about the health of her 8-year-old.
“Like, okay Karen. If you’re kid’s so immunocompromised, why is she out in public and not secreted away in an oubliette somewhere like an ugly Victorian child? Hashtag STAY HOME!” Tavares continued, nervously flipping his face shield to half mast like one of those green accountant’s visors. “People have no common sense.”
When asked about his other pandemic hygiene procedures, Tavares explained that he “just can’t even” with nitrile rubber, all hand soaps, and “the sensation of fabric or paper on [his] delicate nose skin.”
For Tavares, it’s the face shield or nothing. And thankfully, his jaunty big boy tiara has only one drawback.
“The problem is when you sneeze or cough inside the shield, the splatter gets everywhere,” He explains. “It’s really annoying. I can’t read David Foster Wallace like that.”
Tavares plans to continue his unorthodox shield practices until the virus runs its course, or until he graduates from his one-year program sometime in 2024.
