Before what has become one of Elagabalus Stage America's new holy days – Nahhhnnnlevven – one could not only board a commercial flight without having the contents of your underwear examined by a glove-wearing Security Pantomimer in a blue outfit; one could arrive at the gate minutes before the scheduled departure and so long as the plane's door was still open, you could make your flight.

And with your cup of coffee, too.

Before what has become one of Elagabalus Stage America's new holy days – Nahhhnnnlevven – one could not only board a commercial flight without having the contents of your underwear examined by a glove-wearing Security Pantomimer in a blue outfit; one could arrive at the gate minutes before the scheduled departure and so long as the plane's door was still open, you could make your flight.

And with your cup of coffee, too.

It will be similar in the years ahead for those who are too young now to remember a time when the only Americans who wore "masks" in public were the mentally ill – sad neurotics and pitiable hypochondriacs – and those up to no good, as in bank robbers. A time when no one not actually in a mental hospital or a prison  "practiced" bizarre rituals such as keeping six feet away from other people. When the only stores that had plexiglass shields in between the customer and the the clerk were gas stations, pawn shops and convenience stores in really bad neighborhoods, where the clerk had to fear being shot.

Not because mentally ill people feared the sniffles.