Intergalactic Language Mercenary

Earth is in recession, and a bored, broke ninety-nine-year-old is running out of spare lungs. So he quits his job and becomes an intergalactic language mercenary, paid obscene wages to teach Earther on Peitou, where everything is illegal but nothing is against the law. The aliens of the Brim worlds are adopting Earth's slang, capitalism, and bad habits in ways no one intended, and the mercenaries are supplying the fertilizer. Surviving it requires a prime: artificially induced happiness, chemical or otherwise. Money, politics, religion, and science all matter, but none can make the universe behave. You cannot defeat its absurdity. So stay primed.