So, a while back, or whatever, there was a fairy named Wizz.
Let’s clear a few things up, right off the bat.
By “fairy”, I don’t mean that Wizz is gay. There’s nothing wrong with being gay. People should be able to love and bone whoever they want. But since Wizz’s sexual preference isn’t an integral part of this story, we won’t dwell on it any further.
I should also say that Wizz isn’t a wizard, which is what people sometimes think when they first hear his name. Not a wizard. Being a wizard is also a fine thing to be, but Wizz isn’t one.
Wizz was given his name by the bum that found him abandoned as a baby fairy near the back of a factory in an industrial sector outside of Chicago, Illinois that manufactures Cheez Whiz*, the popular—and might I say delicious—processed cheese spread. But even at an early age, Wizz had a sense for personal branding, and knew that he was going to be a big deal someday, and so at the age of twelve, changed the spelling of his name from Whiz to Wizz, to avoid future trademark infringement issues.
*Cheez Whiz is a registered trademark of The Kraft Heinz Company, and I’m sure their bigshot lawyers have reserved all the rights one can possibly reserve for that name
*Cheez Whiz is a registered trademark of The Kraft Heinz Company, and I’m sure their bigshot lawyers have reserved all the rights one can possibly reserve for that name
In terms of being a fairy, Wizz is a regular fairy. Not a pixie or a nymph or a sprite, or any of the other kinds of fairies from Greek or Norse mythology, or ancient folklore tales. Just a regular, old, run-of-the-mill fairy.
More specifically, it's fairly important to this story to know that Wizz is a tooth fairy. He’s not a toenail fairy or a gray-hair fairy or an earwax fairy. His focus is on teeth, mainly because that’s where the money is. Also, just to note that Wizz isn’t a common tooth fairy. He focuses on certain kinds of teeth. But hold that thought, and we’ll circle back to it.
Lastly, if it wasn’t obvious already, Wizz (he/him) is male. Most people assume that all fairies are female, but that’s not the case. It’s true that most are female, roughly 99.2%, but there are a few guy fairies around. I see your side-eye and one raised eyebrow. Yeah, really. There are male fairies. It's a thing.
Is all that clear? I think that gets you up to speed with Wizz.
Oh, one more thing. Wizz is a smoker. He’s tried to quit many times—the patch a few times and cold turkey a half-dozen—with no luck. So, it's a vice, he’s aware of it, and he still has some hope that he can someday kick the habit. Until then, he tries to be courteous by smoking outside, and washing his hands a lot, especially when he’s around people’s mouths.
So, to understand Wizz’s profession, you have to understand the economics of the tooth trade.
We all know how it starts. Some little rugrat somewhere has a tooth fall out, or pulls it out with their fingers, or ties a string around the tooth, ties the other end of the sting to a door and slams it shut. Then they wash the blood off the tooth—or their parents or guardians do—put the tooth under their pillow before they go to sleep one night, and then wake up the next morning with a few coins or maybe a dollar for their pain and suffering. Bing, bang, boom.
But what really happens, behind the scenes? I’ll tell you.
When a tooth fairy’s services are needed, the Tooth Compensation Division (TCD) of Cresgate* is notified. Based on geographic location, a regular tooth fairy is sent to the child’s house to collect the tooth, leave some money, and deliver the tooth back to Cresgate. What does Cresgate do with all those millions of teeth they collect? Wait, before we go on, real quick…
*Cresgate is a registered trademark of Cresgate Corporation, which also makes lotions, dog food, breakfast cereal, socks, chocolate bars, propane tanks, and a host of other random products you wouldn’t think would be made by the same company
Cresgate then pays the tooth fairy slightly more than the fairy leaves for the child. So, the difference between what the tooth fairy leaves the child and what Cresgate gives the fairy is called profit. The ROI is small, we’re talking cents, so it's like making less than minimum wage. Way less.
So, being a regular tooth fairy is a thankless grind. Which you likely don’t know due to Cresgate’s massively successful ‘Have a Tooth Fairy Smile!’ publicity effort in the mid-2000s—to counter the Worldwide Tooth Fairy (WTF) union’s expose on the deplorable working conditions and paltry compensation of its members—which portrayed tooth fairies as happy, whimsical and well-compensated.
All lies. You can’t very well afford collision insurance or wing surgery when you don’t make enough to eat or pay the rent on your two-bedroom, tree-hollow condo.
Which brings us back to Wizz and his specialty: wisdom teeth.
Cresgate figured out a few years back, or whatever, that there was a market for the extraction of wisdom teeth, and created the Wisdom Extraction Division (WED), of which Wizz is a member.
Sometimes adults will have already had their wisdom teeth extracted, in which case they put them under their pillow and, blah blah blah, you know the rest. But sometimes, people are too lazy or cheap to go to an actual dentist, and want to have a tooth fairy extract their wisdom teeth.
It's about as gruesome a scene as you would expect. Just picture Wizz, one foot on the sleeping client’s neck, the other under their nose, with a long, sharp metal tool sunk deep into the person’s gums trying to pry a stubborn wisdom tooth out, roots and all. It’s a bloody mess.
One time, a client named Sharice hadn’t taken the correct dose of Cresgate’s Pre-Wisdom Tooth Extraction Sedative pills, and she almost bit Wizz’s forearm clean off. One time, one of Wizz’s most notable clients—a guy named Ronald who is Taylor Swift’s Mother’s security guard’s cousin—started sleepwalking in the middle of the job. Wizz had to fly down and push an ottoman in front of Ronald which made him trip, knock his head on a coffee table and pass out on the living room floor, so that he could complete the extraction.
So, wisdom teeth extraction is a dangerous business, and not for the faint of heart.
But like I said before, wisdom teeth is where the money is, which is why Wizz signed up for the job. That and he doesn’t mind the blood. More than doesn’t mind it, he kind of buzzes and thrives on being around it, actually.
Wizz is authorized to give a wisdom teeth extraction client about 5 bucks per tooth, which for them is better than spending hundreds for a dentist to do it. Minus the cost to replace a bloody pillowcase, top sheet and nightshirt, they still come out with a pretty sweet deal. Cresgate then gives Wizz about double that, per tooth, so he makes out too. So, it's a win-win-win, all around.
How is it a win for Cresgate? Well, if you recall, I got distracted before and brought up a question which I didn’t answer, which is…what does Cresgate do with all those millions of children’s baby teeth and adult wisdom teeth they collect?
Well, the answer to that question is the whole point of this short story, and the reason for all this exposition, which I hope was at least mildly entertaining.
As you well know, Cresgate is the worldwide, mega-conglomerate founded by style icon and former Queer Eye* star Carson Cressley, and Microsoft* founder Bill Gates.
You didn’t know that? Well, it's true and you’ve either been living under a rock or in space or in a coma for the last 20 years, apparently.
*Queer Eye and Microsoft are registered trademarks, and their company names appear here for informational purposes only. This short story makes no claims that Mr. Cressley and/or Mr. Gates have any knowledge of the events described below. Any claims of liability they may have should be tried in a court of law and not the court of public opinion, which can be based on biased opinions and not facts
Anyway, I could continue on and tell you about what happened next. But since I wasn’t there personally, it would be a second-hand account that lacks important details and color. I know it's a little unconventional, but I think this part of the story should be told to you by Wizz himself. He’s not a big fan of public speaking, but I asked him and he said he’d do it.
So, if I didn’t say earlier, my name is Gene, but people call me ‘Bungee’, which is a whole other story for another time. Right now, I’ll kick the story over to Wizz, and I’ll see you on the other side.
. . .
“No bloody fucking way!” is what I recall saying to my pal and co-worker Dave when he told me the rumor.
This is Wizz, by the way. I don’t really dig talking to groups of people, but Gene said he’d give me fifty bucks if I told you this part of the story from my perspective, and I’m not one to say no to free money. So, here we are.
Dave works for Cresgate in Accounting. I don’t have that many full-sized, human friends who aren’t fairies, but Dave is one of them. He has a girlfriend, and lives on the other side of town. But once in a while, we’ll grab a pint at the pub after his work ends, and before mine begins, and bullshit about this, that and the other thing.
On one such night, when we were four and a half sheets to the wind, Dave told me the rumor regarding what Cresgate does with all the children’s and adult teeth they collect, have collected, and continue to collect. Dave claimed that Cresgate was using the teeth from millions of people to make a database of their DNA.
“For what?” I had yelled at Dave, drunk and not realizing I was screaming.
“Keep your voice down,” Dave had replied. “Who knows. But that can’t be a good thing, right? I mean, that sounds like some evil, devious shit. You don’t collect people’s DNA without their knowledge and that story ends well, right?”
“So, how do we prove it?” I had asked Dave.
“We?” Dave had replied, knocking over the beer next to him, which spilled all over the bar and resulted in the bartender cutting him off. “I’m not going to do anything. I’m not getting involved in some whistleblower bullshit, or getting a mega-conglomerate and its lawyers pissed at me. I can’t afford that. Daisy would kill me, especially now that she has a bun in the oven.”
“What now?” I had replied. “Daisy is pregnant? Congrats, man, but why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“We just found out a few days ago,” Dave had said.
“Oh,” I had replied. “Well, even more reason to do something, man. Kids are expensive. Diapers, food, soccer uniforms, college. If we expose what Cresgate is doing, we could stand to make a lot of money, either to keep quiet, or to speak out and expose the whole thing. Media outlets would pay a lot to interview us. I mean, I hate talking in public, but you can do the talking and I’ll just nod along with what you say, for moral support. And the book deals—”
“Again with this ‘we’ shit,” Dave had interrupted. “It’s too risky, Wizz. I can’t be involved in something like this.”
But apparently in the sober light of the following morning, with Daisy on his case about all the things they needed to buy before the baby arrived, and comparing that to his dwindling bank account balance, Dave had a change of heart.
“I’m in,” Dave had said two nights later, when we had met back at the pub.
“Darts? Cool,” I had replied. “I’m gonna take a piss and I’ll meet you at the board.”
“No, the Cresgate thing,” Dave had whispered. “Devil? Nutella? Anniversary?”
“Are you bloody mad?” I had replied, thinking Dave was maybe having a stroke. “What the hell are you talking about?!”
“Oh my god, Wizz,” Dave had said, impatiently and loudly. “DNA! Exposing the truth and finding out why Cresgate is collecting people’s DNA!”
The early-evening crowd around us at the pub gave Dave strange looks.
“Oh, that,” I had said, as I flagged down the bartender. “Cool. We need a plan.”
And so, over the next two weeks, every other night at the pub, we came up with a plan.
. . .
Here's where I need to interrupt Wizz for a second, because he's about to tell you about the plan, and frankly, it was a shit plan. I mean, it was the kind of plan two guys come up with after consuming roughly seventeen pints of beer over the course of two weeks. But somehow—and I'm still not entirely sure how—it actually worked.
This is Gene again, by the way. I figured I should jump back in here because Wizz tends to get caught up in the details and loses track of the bigger picture. Also, he's chain-smoking while he tells this part, and the secondhand smoke is making me dizzy.
So here's what these two geniuses came up with.
Dave would use his accounting access to figure out where Cresgate stores all the teeth, and Wizz would break in and steal some evidence. That's it. That was the whole plan. No backup plan, no exit strategy, no consideration of security cameras or alarms or the fact that Wizz is about four inches tall and weighs less than a hamster.
But like I said, somehow it worked.
Dave discovered that all the teeth were being sent to a warehouse on the south side of town, right next to a Dunkin' Donuts and a place that sells foam pool noodles year-round. The warehouse had a sign out front—with an amateur logo and bad kerning—that read "Cresgate Recreational Equipment Storage Facility," which should have been their first clue that something fishy was going on, because what the hell kind of recreational equipment requires that level of security?
. . .
Right, so this is Wizz again. I'm back to tell you about the break-in, which Gene is calling a "break-in" but was really more of a "fly-in," since I just flew right in through an air vent.
The warehouse was massive. I'm talking airplane hangar massive. And instead of recreational equipment, it was filled with these giant cylindrical tanks, each one about the size of a city bus, all connected by pipes and tubes and other sciencey-looking shit that I couldn't begin to understand.
But here's the thing that really freaked me out: the tanks were labeled. And the labels weren't like "Tank A" or "Storage Unit 47" or anything normal like that. They were labeled with years. "2019 Extractions," "2020 Extractions," "2021 Extractions," and so on. There were tanks going back decades.
I flew around for about twenty minutes, trying to figure out what the hell I was looking at, when I spotted an office area on the second floor with the lights still on. Through the window, I could see someone in a lab coat hunched over a computer. So I flew up there and perched on the windowsill to get a better look.
The person—turned out to be a woman, maybe in her fifties—was entering data into some kind of database. And on her screen, I could see rows and rows of information: names, addresses, DNA sequences, and something called "Compatibility Scores."
That's when it hit me. Dave was right. They were collecting DNA. But it wasn't for some evil world domination plot or anything like that. It was worse.
They were running a dating service.
. . .
Okay, Gene here again. I need to step in because Wizz just dropped that bombshell and then went to get another beer, leaving you hanging. So let me explain what we eventually figured out.
Cresgate wasn't just collecting DNA to build a database. They were using that DNA to create the most comprehensive genetic compatibility matching service in human history. Think about it: they had access to genetic material from literally millions of people, from childhood through adulthood. They knew everything about everyone's genetic makeup, medical predispositions, hereditary traits, you name it.
And then they were selling that information to dating apps, matchmaking services, fertility clinics, insurance companies, and God knows who else. They were making billions by helping people find their "genetically optimal" partners, while simultaneously helping insurance companies identify people with expensive future medical conditions so they could jack up their premiums.
The beautiful, twisted genius of it all was that people were literally paying Cresgate to steal their DNA. Parents were putting their kids' teeth under pillows and giving Cresgate five bucks for the privilege of having their family's genetic information harvested and sold.
But here's where the story gets really interesting, because Wizz didn't just discover this conspiracy and walk away. Oh no. He had a much better idea.
. . .
This is Wizz again, and Gene is right, I did have a better idea. But before I tell you what it was, I need to finish my story about what happened in that warehouse.
So I'm watching this lab coat lady enter data, right? And I notice that she's got a stack of papers next to her computer. I flew down and landed on her desk—she didn't notice because she was wearing headphones—and got a closer look at those papers.
They were contracts. Hundreds of them. All signed by major corporations, agreeing to pay Cresgate millions of dollars for access to their genetic database. Dating apps were paying to match people based on genetic compatibility. Insurance companies were paying to identify high-risk customers. Even food companies were paying to develop personalized nutrition products based on people's genetic predispositions.
But the contract that really caught my attention was from a company called LifePath Analytics. They were paying Cresgate twenty million dollars a year for access to the DNA database, specifically to identify children who were genetically predisposed to certain talents—athletic ability, musical aptitude, mathematical intelligence, that sort of thing. And then they were selling that information to parents who wanted to give their kids a "head start" in life.
*LifePath Analytics is a registered trademark of Global AI Analytics, which uses artificial intelligence for everything from writing resumes and custom workout plans to analyzing the details and weaknesses of the weapons systems of emerging third-world terrorist organizations
That's when I realized that Cresgate wasn't just violating people's privacy. They were literally turning people's DNA into a product that could be bought and sold.
And that's when I came up with my brilliant-ass plan.
. . .
Okay, I'm going to let Wizz tell you about his "brilliant plan" in a minute, but first I need to set some expectations. When Wizz says "brilliant plan," what he means is "half-baked scheme that somehow worked out due to a combination of luck and corporate incompetence."
But I have to give him credit—it was definitely creative.
. . .
Right, so here's what I did. Instead of trying to expose Cresgate or bring them down or any of that whistleblower nonsense, I decided to beat them at their own game.
I started my own tooth collection service.
I know what you're thinking. "Wizz, you're four inches tall and you work for the company you're trying to compete with. How the hell are you going to start your own business?" And those are fair points. But hear me out.
I still had access to all of Cresgate's client lists, right? So I knew exactly who was requesting wisdom tooth extractions. But instead of following Cresgate's normal protocols, I started offering those clients a better deal.
Here's how it worked. I would show up for a scheduled wisdom tooth extraction, but instead of leaving five bucks and taking the teeth back to Cresgate, I would offer the client a choice. They could take the five bucks and let me deliver their teeth to Cresgate, where their DNA would be harvested and sold without their knowledge. Or they could pay me thirty bucks, I would give them their teeth back, and I would tell Cresgate that the extraction was unsuccessful due to "client non-compliance."
About ninety percent of people chose the thirty-dollar option once I explained what Cresgate was really doing with their teeth.
But here's the really clever part: I wasn't just saving people from having their DNA harvested. I was also building my own client base for a legitimate tooth fairy service.
Within six months, I had over three thousand clients who were paying me directly for tooth collection services. No DNA harvesting, no corporate middleman, just honest tooth fairy work at fair prices. I was making more money than I'd ever made working for Cresgate, and my clients were getting a better deal too.
Dave quit his job at Cresgate and became my business partner. We called our company "Wizz-Bang Extractions," and we started offering services that Cresgate couldn't compete with: transparent pricing, no DNA collection, and personalized service from actual fairies instead of corporate drones.
So, for about 6 months, it was a dream come true. I had my own business, was making great money, and getting to hang out with my pal Dave at work, and after work, as long as it didn’t interfere with his and Daisy’s plans and activities related to their upcoming baby.
. . .
This is Gene again. Since Wizz just passed out under the table, I’ll wrap this little tale up.
It was about 6 months before the excessive number of “client non-compliance” issues triggered red flags at Cresgate. What happened next was a whole cluster-fuck of spying and retaliation and sabotage targeted at Wizz and Dave. It wasn’t pretty.
But that’s a whole other story for another time.
My creative writing teacher at Crosspointe Community College taught us to always end a story on an upbeat note, in case the story ever attracted the attention of a publisher or Hollywood, who favor stories with happy endings. So, instead of breaking my NDA and divulging what eventually happened to Wizz, let’s just end like this…
Dave and Daisy had their baby—a little girl named Debbie—and they’re living safely and quietly in witness protection in an unknown location. At least unknown to me.
The Worldwide Tooth Fairy union ended up endorsing Wizz's business model, and now there are dozens of independent tooth fairy cooperatives operating across the country, all following the practices pioneered by Wizz-Bang Extractions. The spotlight shown on the industry has ensured that those “indie pullers” can exist and thrive without much interference from Cresgate.
And what can I safely say about Wizz, legally, that adheres to the format of a “happy ending”?
Wizz finally quit smoking, at least that’s what was scribbled on a postcard from Syracuse that was hand-delivered to my mailbox one random night. The postcard also indicated that he had stopped drinking. But if you believe that, I’ve got some coastline property to sell you in Eastern Florida.
Oh, and one more thing. That bum who found that baby fairy out in back of the Cheez Whiz factory a long time ago? That was me. If it wasn’t for the focus and effort it took to raise that little guy, who knows what my life would have been like. I probably would have been a dead drunk in a ditch a long, long time ago.
But Wizz gave me purpose, and gave some meaning to my small life.
I miss that bastard every day. But I know, at some point, when it's safe and the coast is clear, my son will be able to come back home.
My son.
And that’s the end of the story, or whatever. For now at least.
My creative writing teacher says I should end on something clever or memorable. But I don’t know. I’m tired and not feeling clever at the moment.
Getting an ending like that out of me right now would be like pulling teeth.
