Elaine and I have been volunteering at a soup kitchen this summer, serving hot lunches and making up takeaway sacks. Thus we have become acquainted with hairnets — one of us directly.
The figure to the left appears in Magic Marker on the kitchen’s box of hairnets (“Lightweight Nylon,” “144 / Ct.”) beneath a handwritten explanation, also in Magic Marker:
If your hair is shoulder length you must wear a net.
I like the way this illustration softens what might otherwise be mistaken for the voice of impersonal authority. Seeing this smiling,
vaguely Mesopotamian figure has made me smile several times this summer.
What is it like to work at a soup kitchen? Tremendously and unpredictably rewarding — like all volunteer work, I’d say.