And a stranger's hand A short term effect

You can imagine the butthurt here at the consummately professional although chronically-underfunded Riddled Research Laboratory when news came to light -- squinting and complaining of a hangover -- of advances in eyelid ossification.*

"People opting for medical experiments to develop bony scutes around the eyes?" I wondered, in a completely non-peevish voice despite someone already using the 'something in your ducts' Brazil reference in the comment thread. "Is the Lizardoid Look a fashion statement now? Perhaps there is an impending invasion of herpetological overlords within which we should be preparing to blend."

"More importantly," Another Kiwi vouchsafed, "they are undercutting our own 'Grow your own bony exoskeleton' package, and I do not believe they are even using an Evolvamat to activate the silent genes."

"'Undercutting' is perhaps not the bon mot," said tigris, having examined the article at more length, "since this is in the context of plastic surgery and facelifts."

We flustered around (which is like 'clustering around' but with only two people) to read over her shoulder. No, we agreed, no-one could possibly have foreseen any bone-related side-effects from injecting the patient's face with a preparation of mesemchymal stem cells, simultaneously with a mineral-based 'dermal filler' as used by bone surgeons to encourage stem cells down the pathway of osteogenesis.

"In my day," I said, "we didn't have ground-up calcium hydroxyl-apatite clay to pad out our faces, and we had to make do with injecting plasticine and melted crayons, which had the advantage of being malleable when warm if we wanted to reshape our physiognomy and look like Jack Palance."

"Bon Mots?" AK wondered. "Are they anything like chocolate Hob-Nobs?"

The task of writing a Keats-&-Chapman story -- culminating in a punch-line about "apatite stimulants" -- is left as an exercise for the reader.

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* One hopes that someone made a video record of the subsequent operation and placed it on Youtuber as a duct tape.