Rattlecans

The new dining room chandelier arrived today, and I quickly set about finding an eye-bolt with which to hang the chandelier chain from a ceiling joist. The chain, though, is painted a matte black, which makes a zinc-plated steel eye-bolt stand out rather harshly. Being frugal, I decided that it wouldn't be a bad idea to see if the finely aged cans of spray paint in the basement would camouflage the steel.
Rooting around in the coffee cans that hold all the spare fasteners quickly turned up a suitably long eye-bolt and a dirty glare from the cat, who resented my stumping around her litter box while she does her dainty business. Some vigorous scrubbing with steel wool removed the corrosion from the loop, although I left the threads cruddy because I didn't intend to paint them anyway. I managed to turn up (oh, what bounty!) both black paint and primer from the shoebox that held the paints from my model rocketry days.
Come on, you know touching off miniature missiles is fun...
With the eye-bolt firmly screwed into a stiff piece of cardboard to serve as my backing, I set off into the backyard. The primer went on smooth, if a little thick, and with no ill effects from its advanced age as far as I could tell. When I returned with the actual paint 30 minutes later, though, I discovered that hadn't cleaned the spray top as well as I should have when I put the can into storage five years earlier.
At this point, in the interest of explaining my logic, I should introduce a rule often heard in engineering: If it won't work, hit it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.
Ahem. This, in case you missed middle school English classes, is known as foreshadowing.
Naturally, then, faced with a spray nozzle that wouldn't depress properly, I inverted the can and gave it a firm whack on the nearest stone. No effect, which didn't dissuade me. Obviously the nozzle just needed a proper smack to free it up. Make it so!
The can of paint, at this point, didn't seem to appreciate being woken from its extended nap, and promptly puked up some gobbets of sticky material before going full-auto. I waved it in the general direction of the eye-bolt (remember the eye-bolt? this story is about the eye-bolt), ensured that there was full coverage, and then set about trying to stop the rattlecan. My first attempt was to grasp the top of the spray nozzle and pull up, which resulted in well-coated fingers and no appreciable reduction in the flow. Well, if that didn't do it, maybe I should just let the can empty itself over the lawn. Eh, no, lawns don't look nearly as good in Rustoleum satin black.
Nothing to it, then, but another hearty crack with a stone! And, wouldn't you know it, it worked. The rattlecan spat once and expired, and I was left with an eye-bolt that matches the chandelier very nicely.
I am so smart. And covered in paint.