In front of the Leslieville Cheese Market on Queen East, hipster dads wearing sneakers stand waiting for their wives. Each man is in charge of a baby stroller and the family dog. Feeling a kind of silly camaraderie, the men trade pleasantries about the day while their wives shop for expensive Cambonzola.
Directly beside the Cheese Market is the K & S Family Restaurant. It’s essentially a diner, but what they seem to sell more than anything is beer. You can pass by the place on any given day, at any time, and through the window you’ll see lost looking people staring back at you, each one with a bottle of beer and a shooter in front of them.
Three women with ruddy faces stand smoking in front of the restaurant.
One of them is angry, telling a story.
“So I opened the door and said What The Fuck Do You Want? “
The other women nodded, wanting to know that the fuck she wanted.
“I hate it when the teachers come to your house,” she chipped in.
“Yeah, so she tells me some shit about what Kevin is doing in school, and I said, I Know That, He’s My Son, For Fuck’s Sake!”
A couple of minutes later, two slightly drunk 50-something men emerge from the restaurant. Playfully, one of them picks up the chalkboard that sits on the sidewalk advertising the specials. He begins to hit the other man with it, gently at first, but as they get a little more rambunctious, they actually start trying to hurt one another, all the while pretending it was just in good fun.