Curses! Foiled again!

So I'm going after a chocolate bar the other night. I've been dieting with my wife the past three months, and it isn't bad. After the first two weeks, I'd lost the terrible cravings for snacks and sweets. I've even lost over 10 lbs. But every once in a while, something short-circuits in my brain and I've just gotta snack. This was a chocolate moment (as opposed to the "I'm-watching-college-football-bowl-games-and-I-NEED-Cheetos" type of moment) and I hit my emergency stash. Now, I don't know about you, but my stash is located in the drawer where I keep my sweaters. Convenient enough that I can access it at a moment's notice, yet out of sight, because while my brain is fully convinced about dieting, my eyes betray me every time.

First you have to get past the colorful paper wrapper. Fine, I KNOW what brand of chocolate this is; what I need is to EAT this chocolate soon! Now you have to get past the aluminum wrapper. Foil so thin it appears to be way thinner than the roll of Reynold's in the kitchen. And here comes the problem: it won't tear. There is less than 1/100th of an inch separating me from chocolate bliss, and THE BLASTED FOIL WON'T TEAR OPEN!!

This is in such drastic contrast to using aluminum foil to wrap your leftovers. You can make a pretty nice cover over your leftovers, nice shiny smooth top, edges crimped under to make a nice tight seal, protecting your meal from who knows what inside your refrigerator (maybe from unexpected company?) So let's say you want to actually eat some of those leftovers, instead of just admiring the shiny aluminum. And let's say you know you won't be able to eat all the leftovers (creating left-over leftovers?, or would that be leftovers squared?) so you will want to re-use the nice shiny aluminum foil. So you go about carefully un-crimping the foil from the edges of your dish. And that's when it usually happens. The foil tears, and bang goes your ability to re-use that piece. Even if it doesn't tear (which it probably will) I defy you to replace that foil on your dish and have it make a nice tight cover. It just doesn't work. Which is why I use storage containers with lids, or sometimes plastic wrap (and why does regular Saran Wrap not cling to your dish, but Saran Cling Wrap works great? What good is regular Saran Wrap?) .

But getting back to the point (you're surpised that there IS a point?) why is it that when I WANT to keep the food covered with foil it will tear if I so much as look at it, but when I want to unwrap a bar of chocolate in a hurry, that aluminum foil displays the tensile strength of steel?
This is the kind of stuff that just drives me round the bend. Other people concern themselves with more important laws of physics, or get government grants to study the effects of say, cows belching, and get principles named after them to be remembered for centuries.

So here goes, Burgess' principle #44 - Aluminum foil, when used to wrap chocolate, takes on many of the properties of Kevlar, owing to a molecular-level reaction between it and the chocolate it is wrapped around.

All government agencies interested in providing grant money to further research this phenomenon may send checks to the usual location.

Apologies to Reynold's and Saran Wrap; you make wonderful, life enhancing products. Feel free to pay me scandalous amounts of money to endorse same.

Sadly, some chocolate was hurt during the making of this blog. Not to worry, it was eaten in the most humane way possible.