I’m wearing a colander on my head

One of my father’s favorite stories about when he was a young FBI agent in the NYC office was the call he and one of this colleagues made to a man living in a very expensive apartment on Park Avenue on the Upper East Side. The man had called the FBI claiming that “the Russians” were spying on him. As my father was on a squad that dealt with Soviet espionage, this was a call directed to them.

They arrived at the very swank abode and were ushered in by the doorman who rolled his eyes a bit when the agents explained where they were going. They soon found out why.

The man was very reluctant to open the door and the agents had to show both their credentials and badges to the man through the peephole before he would open the door. Upon entering my father noted that the man had a metal colander on his head and was wearing only his underwear. Every inch of the walls was covered by aluminum foil and the man had placed a series of wire hangers around the rooms, interconnected and touching the foil in various locations. The man explained that the hangers were used to “ground” the foil as it was absorbing the radio waves that were coming in from “the Russians.”

I believe that my father and his partner left at this point and went back to the office to file their report as a “man in need of a psychiatrist.”

I thought of that story as I read this Yahoo Health missive entitled Is Your Health on the Line? The article details information about the hazards of radiation caused by cell phone use. It goes on to express concerns about many popular household appliances that emit radio waves. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was living in a soup of radiation. With the exception of the “baby monitor,” I have and use all of the devices listed in the article.

Enjoy…I’m heading to the kitchen to get my colander.

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Photo credit: Image licensed through Creative Commons by ortizemj12