Little Billy Johnson needed a pair of new shoes. Billy often needed them because his feet would sweat like a waterfall and not just in the summertime, although it WAS worse then. Billy’s Mom always supplied him with a large shaker topped bottle of talcum powder to absorb the wetness and hopefully prevent unpleasant orders emitting from those extremities of Billy’s anatomy.
Since he lived in a small town, Mr. Ned’s Shoe Store and Emporium was within walking distance of Billy’s home. Well, actually EVERYTHING was within walking distance in Corner’s Bluff.
So after a good shower and after slipping on clean white socks Billy talcum powdered the interior of his old pitiful looking shoes. A light dusting just wouldn’t do for these worn out Weejuns since Mr. Ned’s nose was going to be closer than any nose should be to Billy’s “Straight into the trash!” shoes. Billy removed the shaker top and poured a generous amount of neutralizing talc into each shoe. “That outta do it!”…Billy thought, after more than half of the container was poured rather equally into the left then the right shoe.
Billy put on his gray T shirt and his new black jeans and then stepped into his shoes for the last time. As Billy stepped into each of them, a small burst of powder pouffed up the outsides of each shoe and onto the cuff of his jeans leaving a ghostly white tracing that looked like a Strato-cumulus cloud, which Billy was studying about in fifth grade.
“COOL!” thought Billy and he left the house headed for the shoe store.
Billy wore shoes out so often that his parents had an account at Mr. Ned’s and as Billy walked down Main Street onlookers were pointing at him and chuckling to each other. When Billy looked down at his shoes he saw that the bottom of his pants were almost completely white and each step generated another cumulus display spurting from the sides of each shoe.
By the time he arrived at his destination a crowd had formed to watch his volcanic shoe displays and Billy quickly slipped into the sanctity of the shoe store!
“Ah…Hi there…Billy…” Mr. Ned tried his best not to laugh at Billy’s white and black jeans as Billy puffed his way to a seat.
“A new pair of Weejuns?” Mr. Ned was confirming the obvious rather than actually asking a question.
“Yes Sir…Cordovan!”
Mr. Ned removed the right shoe first and a puff of talc rose into the air, the proprietor turning his head away from the white storm.
Then as Mr. Ned held the shoe as far from his nose as his arm would reach, using only the very tips of his fingers, a cascade of worn talc poured out and formed a pointed pile on the carpeted floor.
The Emporium owner repeated the same procedure with the left shoe. Looking at the two equal piles of talc that had formed on the floor in front of Billy Mr. Ned said…”I’ll get to those later.” Then holding both shoes as delicately as possible Mr. Ned carried them to the wastebasket and dropped them straight down and in!
After fitting Billy with a brand new pair of Cordovan Weejuns Mr. Ned said “OK Billy…I think that does it!”
“Thanks Sir …and could you add one more thing to the bill?”
“What’s that Billy?”
“A new bottle of talc…we’re out!”