This weekend was the annual retreat for the All Souls Choir, which meant I was on my own with Louisa from Friday night until Sunday afternoon. In the past, I’ve approached weekends like these much like one might approach holiday shopping: with resignation and the determination to make it as painless as possible. This weekend, I chose another tack (which one might also apply to the gluttony of holiday retail): find the ways to make the time as meaningful as possible.
So, Friday night was movie night. It being up to Louisa to choose the film, we were treated to “Good Luck Charlie: It’s Christmas.” If you have missed the whole ouvre that is “Good Luck Charlie,” I’ll let you collect the details on your own. For the point of our discussion, we only need to study one scene; that scene in which Teddy (a female character, as is Charlie) and Amy (likewise female) are in a van with an older, obviously loving, couple. For a couple as sweet as this, one might wonder what bonds them together.
The tin foil hats answer it. They are bonded by the mutual experience of alien abduction. In a moment of suspended suspension of disbelief (a practice I have picked up from my dear wife) I thought, “Hey, that’s not right. The tin foil goes on the INSIDE.” Why, you ask, does the tin foil go on the inside? Because, if you wear your tinfoil on the outside of your hat, everyone will think you are crazy!
Now, you might be asking yourself why it is that I seem to have some knowledge about tinfoil hats. The answer is no, I have not been abducted by aliens, although I can understand sometimes how it might seem so. I’m weird but not so weird that I can’t keep the weirdness under my hat, so to speak. Most of the time, anyway. Every now and then I’ll slip up and tip my hat. Or maybe I’ll doff my cap on purpose because I think someone else might have foil under their hat too. Maybe we can laugh about it.
The purpose of the foil, of course, is to keep the aliens, the others, from scanning our brains. There are precious few people around whom I have kept my hat off long enough for them to start scanning. There’s good reason for that, of course. You don’t want just anyone reading what’s going on in there. What’s a real surprise, and a huge gift, is when we find the people who, having read it, a) know what it means, and b) don’t go running away in horror. For everyone else, I’ll keep my hat on, but I’m putting the foil inside.