My daughter is eating rice cake snacks. Ketchup flavoured. I’m drinking an Americano from McDonalds. It was free. Courtesy of all the stickers from the $1 coffees you can get while all the suckers go to Tim’s to get their Please Play Again cups. My wife pointed out that McDonalds is a guaranteed free drink after 7 drinks. That’s $7 right now. Tim’s doesn’t guarantee a free drink in 7 drinks, and they’re full price. The wisdom of the wife wins again.

Two people who require staff to help them live come in, escorted by a burned out looking true believer. I’ve seen this situation a thousand times. My daughter watches as they make noises to each other. We’re unsure if it’s a coded language or just noise. Which makes me realize it’s the same problem people have all over, only more pronounced.

My daughter is concerned and makes faces and asks me what they’re doing. I consider all the great answers I could give that would make me look like the asshole I’ve been labelled more than once. Instead I say: they’re just waiting, buddy.

My daughter says they should be quiet because this is a school. I told her it’s more of a waiting room. The two on the bench continue to talk while their worker talks to another worker and they bond over the self-imposed woes of their career choices.

Beside us, teenage boys are talking shit and being cool, it brings back memories and I wonder if I was a loser once too. Knowing damn well we all were. My daughter keeps staring at the two people on the bench, who might as well be waiting for godot.

One of the teenage idiots holds a lighter as long as he can with the flame on. He drops it after a while and says ohhhh shit, he groans ohhhhh fuck guys, guys, guys listen, I burned myself. His thumb is in his mouth now, like he’s going to suck the burn out.

The other two laugh at him. Even the bench sitters notice the boy in his own self-imposed agony. He says to his friends don’t laugh assholes, burns are serious. I act like I’m not entertained by this. He says to no one in particular: don’t play with fire kids, you’ll get burned.

That’s the smartest thing he’s probably said in his entire life. They walk away and take the smell of marijuana with them. The world keeps turning and my daughter is endlessly confused and fascinated by everything. I tell her it’s ok, just don’t play with fire. She already knows that because her preschool took her to the fire hall. Also, she’s not an idiot.