Larry inhaled for a second, let the shivers pass, and proceeded to wipe the spunk off the glossy mag with his shirt. It didn’t not not work,
and would have, under circumstances slightly altered, perhaps even been deemed a success, but in this actual world (ours), Larry’s low-PH ejaculate had cleft ink from paper, unsticking chemical bonds not meant unstuck, and Larry had succeeded in little more than screen-print-
ing a pair of gorgeous Kalahari saggers from his dentist’s waiting room’s copy of last years’ National Geographic onto his very best polyester button-down.

The receptionist cleared her throat. “Are you done, sir?”

“Oh yeah, absolutely, thanks, miss.”

Soon as Larry walked out of the office, he realized he’d left his visor in there, but Larry was willing to bet that that receptionist wasn’t going to let him back in before she was done scraping trace ejaculate + CMYK ink residue from a now blank, denuded page of Nat Geo (to make Cyan,
Magenta, Yellow, and blacK little in-vitro Larries, no doubt), so really he might as well just get the visor back whenever the tooth falls out again and he has to get it re-grafted.
Larry checked his voicemail. Oof. Headache. Another hour-long missive from the dame in charge of setting up his new fanpage, a former friend of his, who was up to her ears in work (low bar, her ears, since she weighed them lobes down with lead clamps because something about ele-
phants being a symbol of longevity in certain cultures, apparently). A hundred thousand Uyghurs, all houseguests of hers, making an absolute mess of her living room.

“… anyway, I’m trying to keep them happy by just playing this new song I wrote called Loops on a loop in my living room, full blast, but honestly, I don’t think it’s working, and they’re just all very very unhappy…”

This friend, of course, neglected to mention that they were being kept there under circumstances deemed “murky at best” by the International Court of Justice and “pretty much standard” by the head of the Chinese Communist Party, acclaimed wuxia star Jackie Chan.

Larry sighed. There was a traffic jam along the conveyor belt sidewalk, and it would take him at least an hour to get to his pad uptown. It was really late in China, and he’d promised Jackie that he’d log into Chunky Trollcraft, an MMORPG they both played, before Chan’s bedtime, but it
didn’t look like he was going to make it.

“Sorry to let the guild down, Jackie,” Larry texted his friend. “My dentist stole my visor, and I don’t think I can make it. I’ll make it up to you, promise.”

“okay” came Jackie’s reply, soon afterward.