It’s 11:00 and a typically quiet night at the Tim Hortons restaurant near home. That is, it was a typically quiet night.

Like a parade of elephants trampling through the downtown district, a group of high school punks wander in and obliterate any sign of the quiet atmosphere I was enjoying.

Elephants on crack.
Elephants with bad fashion sense.
Elephants with adolescent angst and acne.

There’s a rather fetching brunette if not for the lummox of a boyfriend who’s accompanying her. Loose raggedy t-shirt, large belt with metal studs, and jeans hanging so low, one could practically make out the colourful patterns on his boxers. What are they? Yellow smiling faces or happy sunshines?

He catches me looking and I glare. Unflinching. Yes, dude-with-inability-to-fasten-belt, I’m looking at you. Don’t fuck with me, yo.

There’s an ugly short girl. Skanky is what skanky does and boy, was this slut trying. Hair dyed as green as pesticide-written grass and black, tight jeans cut off at the ankle.

She looks like Krusty the Clown wearing black spandex.

Then there’s the tall guy with the big belly who’s wearing the oddest accessory ever: a straw hat. Something like what you might see on an old lady after having spent way, way too long in the sunny pastures. But get this: from the the neck down, he’s practically a walking and talking recruitment poster for white thugs and gangstas. White t-shirt down to the knees and jogging pants three sizes too large.

I try not to laugh as I think of Eminem gone Country.