The Tear Stopping Lab Page 3     She has never been called Ma’am before in her life. She doesn’t like the sound of it. People who know her call her Vee Lee which is her DJ name. Strangers usually refer to her as “Hey,” and sometimes “Hey, you.” She approaches the counter slowly. Behind it are five posters of Dr. Kcops with five of his success stories. In each one he stands tall in his white robe, hugging a smiling patient of a different color wearing a “professional” outfit of a different challenging career. Something feels very wrong. She can already smell disappointment. She remembers flipping through Time Out New York two years ago, looking for her name in the DJ lineup for a club listing when she discovered the feature article about this place. Only then did she understand the neon sign she had passed by so many times which had a tear drop in a red circle with a red diagonal across. She used to think it was some type of witty advertisement. The article spoke about a special eye doctor that made a fortune from his patented chemical formula that made people stop crying. The doctor was interviewed in the article and spoke of how he was a graduate student at MIT, when one day sitting in the lab, he accidentally mixed this chemical solution that dissolved tears. The doctor immediately patented the formula and began exploring its commercial applications. Today, there are five such Tear Stopping labs in the world, one on each continent. The North American Lab in New York was the first he opened (and by far his most popular), and he still serves customers at the lab daily. The others have four of his finest students presiding. The article ended on a tacky note that persisted in her memory. The writer asked the doctor how he even thought to try his solution on tears. The doctor replied that he was working late at the lab one night, wondering how he was going to pay back his graduate school loans when tears fell from his eyes onto the lab counter (where drops of his solution resided), and they instantly dissolved. Then the writer concluded with some cheesy remark about how Dr. Kcops hasn’t cried about money problems since.