This may be hard to understand for those of you that live in sane parts of the country, but masks in blue state America are still very much a thing and are not going away, not in medical offices anyway. Those of us that live in them need to accept this and decide to either have continually uncomfortable conversations with receptionist gatekeepers, form our own underground network of providers, or move.

My dentist’s office has been fanatical about masks throughout Covid, but I was so hoping by now common sense had finally arrived and that they had ditched the state health department’s mask requirement. I walked in today smiling large and gave the receptionist a boisterous hello, naively hoping she’d pull down her mask and we’d smile and laugh like pre Covid times.

Nope, not even close. I was handed a mask as soon as I walked in. I feigned…