Thursday, October 9, 2025

Do you ever think about aluminum foil?

 

It is so common and easy to use, it could be overlooked.  But look at it.  A metal so thin it is perfectly smooth, flexible, and strong.  It comes off the roll easily.  It’s flawless.

 

I remember aluminum foil’s predecessor, tin foil.  It was not so uniform and flexible, and not as cheap.  Tinsel on the Christmas tree was made of tin foil.  Metal.  I know it was metal because when it fell off the tree and landed on the train tracks, it would spark and short circuit the train.  Tin foil was precious enough that we would recover it from the tree after Christmas, piece by piece, to be put away for use again the next year.

 

But back to aluminum foil.  The aluminum gets mined, refined, and rolled out into these fine flexible sheets for our convenience, and it’s so inexpensive, when we’re through with each piece, we just crumple it up and throw it away.  Amazing.

 

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