The Honest Painters

by ARthur

 

Like any crack industrial spy, Harmon Long occasionally swipes an invention or formula that is too hot to sell right away. Instead, as he learned from experience, it is better to sit on the stolen item, let word get around the industry that it is missing, and then get a bidding war going. Such an item was the youth elixir he smuggled out of Concave Industries. He could retire on what this exclusive pharmaceutical would bring him through an underground auction.

Harmon threw the floppy disk containing the formula into a roaring fire set in a steel drum by hobos for cooking, rather than be caught with it. But he also mailed through Concave's own shipping department the only batch of the elixir in existence. It occupied three quarters of a Jack Daniel's whiskey bottle, and it arrived that afternoon. He put it in his liquor cabinet.

Also arriving that afternoon were two painters Harmon had hired to paint his kitchen. They were two weeks overdue and eager to get started. After he showed them what he wanted done, Harmon received a phone call demanding that he meet personally with the caller immediately. On leaving his home, Harmon told the painters, "I'm going to be gone for an hour. You do your work and don't touch anything while I'm away." The older of the two painters huffed, "You insult us! We are honest painters."

When Harmon returned, he found his liquor cabinet open and the Jack Daniel's bottle missing. Rushing into the kitchen, he found a mess, with paint poured everywhere. Sitting in the middle of the mess were two babies. "Did you steal and drink a bottle from my liquor cabinet?" he asked the babies. "No! We no steal nuttin'," the larger of the two babies replied. Harmon also wanted to ask the painters-turned-babies how come they were now wearing diapers, but they had just lied to him, so he knew he wouldn't get a straight answer.

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