To keep the aliens from stealing my brainwaves.

This prank is just too cool. I'm trying to imagine what that would look like -- too bad there's no photo to accompany the story.

I think I've mentioned here before that my grandmother is a little crazy. The reason I bring that up again is because this story reminded me of her. She once wallpapered her bathroom with tinfoil. (I've probably mentioned that before, too.)

Contrary to the title of this post, it was more of a proto-Martha touch than a paranoia thing...as far as we know. She said she thought it would look neat. And it did, at least to a little kid's eyes. It was crinkly and semi-reflective, and she also had painted the old cast-iron tub and the pipes under the sink silver. I recall there also being a lot of purple touches in the room as well.

I liked seeing my vague silhouette on the wall, strange and alien. Other than "killing" Wile E. Coyote (a stuffed animal my brother and I would pretend to torture whenever we visited), there wasn't much else to do in Grandma's apartment. Well, we could read her Beatrix Potter books, but that lost its allure at around age 8.

What I don't remember was the nearly unbearable fumes from the rubber cement she used to put the tinfoil up. Apparently it was hard to be in the bathroom for very long the first few months after she did it, or else you'd get dizzy or headachey. But hey, she was willing to suffer for fashion.