and oh yes, we had a war as well

It was toward the end of the winter that we were told to prepare our gas masks for use. That meant taking them out of their boxes and removing various protective coverings. Though I was convinced both that nothing was going to happen, and than were something to happen these masks weren't going to be of much help, we complied with the instructions of the authorities.

It's an irreversible process. Once you've prepared the masks for use, it's impossible to retrace your steps and make it look as though it's never been opened. Of course I had no intention of trying to return anything to its pre-use position, but on the other hand I'm not sure that I expected that there would be so many leftovers from the preparing the masks for use. Something had to be pulled out here, something else removed there, and after a while things accumulate.

When the authorities decided that all was safe, the question of how to get rid of all the nylon that was used for closing off rooms in people's homes became a rather critical question. I found myself more concerned with smaller items - items that were easy to dispose of, but just the same, items that were basically by-products of preparing the masks, and that now represented that almost forgotten process.