| It all began innocently enough, as most things do. We
were having a little get-together at Howard and Shannon's house while they were out of
town (it's okay...Howard approved it before hand). Unfortunately, these pals of mine
do not get good reception on their TV. And we needed to watch TV. Now,
normally, at a party, TV wouldn't be a necessity but this time it was. My friend,
Mara, had a friend she went to college with who was going to be on Saturday Night Live.
(In case you're wondering, the Saturday Night Live person is a young lady named
Rachel Dratch who used to be with the Second
City Comedy Company in Chicago. She's now on SNL and hopefully you'll have the honor of laughing at her work.) So
we turned on the television, but the aforementioned reception problem reared its ugly
head. I struggled with the task of making the television show something other than
snow, but to no avail. Luckily Kristen, another friend of mine, had brought her
six-year old son, Tate (pronounced Tah-tay), to the party. We'd kept the
get-together rather tame up to this point since there was a kid around. Anyway, Tate
grabbed the antennae and stood where we told him to stand and tried to get the damned
thing to work. Still, despite his superior kid mind and its attunement to all things
technological, we were unable to achieve the level of reception which would be necessary
for our endeavor of viewing pleasure.
And that's where it started, the aluminum foil thing. Somebody grabbed the foil
and started covering Tate in it in a vain effort to fix our little TV problem. Soon
Tate's arms were entirely covered in foil and his hair was growing little foil sprouts.
He was laughing so much and it looked like so much fun that pretty soon just about
everyone started getting into the act. Oh the madness that ensued. People
began decorating each other with foil. We had aluminum foil hair and aluminum foil
necklaces and aluminum foil fingernails. Some people balked, but eventually most of
them came around. The wearing of foil quickly became pretty normal and I noticed
that the few who chose not to be a part of our foil world were having much less fun than
us foilies. Finally, when the get-together began to be more like a party and thus
beyond what Howard had approved, we all decided to head to our favorite bar, Bernie's Bungalow Lounge.
I insisted that everyone wear their foil for the visit to the bar, and amazingly enough
everyone agreed. The foil made us all much too happy to want to remove it. At
the bar, my buddy, DJ Ariel Attack, was spinning the records, but we showed up during a
dead time on the dance floor. So we took the floor en masse and danced our foil
covered asses off. Somehow the foil gave us the power to change the very tone of the
bar. Bernie himself joined us and got foiled by Kamala, our "official"
foiler. Other friends of ours who hadn't been at the get-together came forward for
their foil accoutrements. Strangers wondered if they could be foiled, too.
Luckily, we'd brought a roll long enough for everybody.
That night was incredible. That a simple invention like aluminum foil could bring
so much joy astounded me. Was this a one time thing? Could such an occasion be
duplicated? Should it be duplicated? The general consensus was that it was one
of those really outstanding things that happen to you once. No one seemed saddened
by that. It just seemed to be the way it was.
Still, a few weeks later, I found myself at a party with many of the same people.
Somehow the foil came out. It happened in a very natural, unforced way.
And, while it wasn't as big a foil event as the time before, that foil brightened
the party like no amount of alcohol could.
Following that success, we all decided to spend our Halloween as foil superheroes.
But more about that later.
For now, let me just tell you this. A little bit of foil goes a long way.
Foil is your friend. Learn to love it like I have and you will not be disappointed. |
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