A lady that I know is always bringing desserts to some friends and I. Mostly they are brownies. Brownies that make you stop, close your eyes and enjoy the life that God has given you because for a chewy, chocolaty moment, you’ve slipped the bonds of earth and slid up to heaven. So, I’ve gotten accustomed to looking for her tin foil covered gifts. And then one day, it struck me how exciting that tin foil can be.
Because I’ve never known anything bad to be in tin foil. Well, sure there is that 3-week old piece of neglected pizza in the back of the fridge that got overlooked. But at ONE point, tin foil covered a fine piece of pizza that was worthy of archiving.

 

Aluminum foil; it is that crumpled up, shiny, crinkled and wadded up mystery ball in the refrigerator.  It is that that weirdly shaped orb that sits in our ovens and helps keep our potato in tip top shape while it’s cooking on the inside. It is that oblong cylinder that sits on the grill and envelopes a tender but crunchy hot buttered ear of corn on the cob. Or, it is the flat, reflective sheet that seals up a freshly baked apple pie from the flies at the summer outing.

 

Indeed, tin foil is part of our lives. In fact, it houses some of the best things in our lives.  Seeing something covered in it is like seeing a Christmas present when you walk into your mom’s kitchen and there it sits: a pan covered in silver unwrinkled tin foil.

What buttery, sugar coated delicacy sits underneath that shiny covering? Is it some leftover banana cake? The really sweet kind of cake that only old women can make. The type that just by opening the lid and simply looking at it makes cavities instantly plop into in your teeth.

Nobody can wait to peel back that noisy lid to bend down and spy what’s underneath. All the while hoping nobody heard the rattles that the covering is apt to erupt in and let the cook in the other room know that we have peeked. Tin foil can be a traitor to the best of us because this foil takes its job of food guarding very seriously.

Or maybe, it’s a watchman for grilled burgers; hot, cheesy draped and with grill lines on them. The cheeseburgers that your loving wife cooked extra just for you because she knew you were going to be late from work.

Indeed, aluminum foil has had many functions in our lives.
For instance, those of us old enough to remember, yes, tin foil on a pair of rabbit ears has made Hee Haw come in clearer on a Saturday night home with stove-top cooked popcorn and a cold Coke in a bottle.
How many swords were sheathed in tin foil to kill the dragon at the school play?
The reflective material has made many a body armor for your favorite gladiator.
And ponder on the amount of angels that have sweetly sung in the choir while aluminum-foil-covered wings flickered behind her angelic little noggin.

 

So, the next time you see or hear tin foil rattling, stop for a minute and give thanks to the inventor of tin foil.
Because tin foil wraps itself around some of the very most exciting things in our lives.

 

That’s the best that I can tell about it.
~Mark