Brent Shapiro, a totally sane Venice comedy writer, doesn't think for a minute that gas masks will save him in the event of a biological or chemical attack.
Indeed, he was so mortified about his irrational impulse to buy some that when he entered a military surplus store last week he couldn't even get up his courage to ask for them. A woman next to him had to.
Still, he walked out with two reject masks from the top of a heap of remnants--one Swedish, one Russian--not even enough for his wife and two small daughters. He knew that even soldiers must be taught how to use them, so they don't suffocate. Still, he got no instructions from store personnel, except a 15-second rundown on filters.
The masks sit in a bag in his car, because he is too embarassed to tell his wife, and he doesn't want to frighten his children.
"Intellectually you know that the delivery of this material is impossible to protect against. But for some reason having them makes me feel better," said Shapiro. "I guess it makes me feel like a better father."
Gas masks are sold out just about everywhere in America. Many consumers are being told they'll have to wait up to six weeks to get one. Prices have tripled, quadrupled and more. Scan the online catalogs for a gas mask, and nearly every description is followed by "sold out!" A batch of 30 Israeli gas masks sold on EBay for more than $100 each last week--in a single purchase that topped $3,000, and stunned surplus-store owners who have long stocked the ungainly masks to sell to trick-or-treaters with a morbid streak.
Long relegated to dark corners of military history, and dusty, forgotten bins in the back of surplus stores, gas masks have sprung to the fore of the American consciousness. They have become a symbol--of fear and self-defense. In the popular imagination, they have become a talisman against terror.
But should you want a clammy rubber talisman of your own--if you can even \o7 find \f7 one--there is something you should know: Chances are it will be useless.
While the military has detectors able to sense chemicals in the air that can be blocked by a mask, the civilian world is simply not wired that way.
"If you see people three blocks up falling over and vomiting, it's time to wear it," said Victor Utgoff, a defense analyst for a firm in the Washington, D.C., area. "But what are people going to do? Carry them around? Watch the skies for crop dusters?"
