Monday, October 1, 2012

Cultural Lessons In New Mexico: Tin Foil on Windows

When I was looking at rental apartments in Alamogordo, I noticed that some people had tin foil in their windows, which obscured the entire windows.

Back in Missouri, if we saw tin foil in windows like that, we'd probably think that, at best, the home dwellers didn't have a very refined decorative sense. (Yes, many of us seal our interior windows and their frames with plastic during the winter, but that's an entirely different story.)

So I asked one of the property managers I was working with, "Why do some people put foil on their windows"?

The reply: "The New Mexico sun is so intense in the summer that blinds aren't enough to keep heat out of the house, so the residents put the foil up to reflect the sunlight away from the windows."

Ohhhh.

Fortunately, I brought tin foil to New Mexico with me.

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