In the old days, poeple used to wear a similar device -- cloth caps with gold thread in them -- before foil was invented. These were called pacems, and one of the pop hits of the day was a song called Donna Nobis Pacem, about the pacem belonging to a teenage girl (Donna Nobis) who used yellow thread to save money and was snatched in plain sight by an alien cloud as a result. The story is long forgotten, but we still talk about "Donning" our little hats to defend us against the mind-control beams of the WOMISTs.

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