Bernie Has a Night Out

Bernie arrived at the shop with a bundle of clothes.  He explained that he was going out that night with his wife.  She was going to pick him up at the end of work, which was unusual, but this was an important event, and she was going to make sure Bernie didn't linger at the shop.  He'd brought clean clothes to change into before leaving so they wouldn't lose any time.

At the end of the day, Bernie's wife arrived, and he stepped into the bathroom to change out of his dusty shop duds.  When he emerged, he looked great, but for one detail.  "Bernie, you can't wear those shoes!" said his wife.  Sure enough, Bernie had forgotten to bring dress shoes.  His shop shoes were filthy, banged-up and worn at the heels.

Bernie thought for a second.  "Oh, I'll fix that," he said.  He wiped his shoes down, and then went over to the shelf where the cans of spray lacquer were lined up.  He picked out the gloss black, and commenced spraying, not even bothering to remove his shoes first.  After the lacquer dried, the shoes looked pretty good, if you didn't look too closely.  "See?  I've got a fix for everything."  Bernie and his wife stepped out for their evening of dining and dancing.  He left behind the black outline of his feet on the floor.

The next day, we asked Bernie how his evening went.  "Oh, we had a great time.  You shoulda seen all the food, they had everything, and there was a whole band playing, we danced all night!"  We looked down at his shoes.  They didn't look too good, big brown splotches showing through the broken black crust.  "Bernie, what happened to your shoes?"  He laughed.  "Well, you know, the lacquer held up OK at first, but as soon as we got dancing, it started to flake off.  I left little flecks of black all over the dance floor."

BC