This was taken at a Duane Reade drug store in Manhattan’s financial district where you’re pretty much up to your ears in traders and entry level investment bankers. Both of those positions tend to be a career stage for budding capitalists where they do very little except pay their dues with long hours, punctuated by the odd night out binge drinking. It’s sort of like residency for medical students, only instead of learning to heal people, they learn to manipulate a deregulated economy to increase the wealth of the already very wealthy!

It only makes sense that the atmosphere of the “neighborhood” evokes a sort of an extended adolescence—a frat house with expensive suits, really. They work 60 hours a week for a couple of years and eventually, in theory, they’ll get a better job with more free time and even more money. Until then, these men (and a few women) are frozen in time, and I’m not just talking about their college years. It’s perpetually Reagan’s America down here, from the corny fashion sense to the cocaine that gets them through those 60 hour work weeks. The grocery stores even sell Tab diet cola—hand to god.

Is it any wonder that the dads who spawned these bros are also bros themselves? And that the only reference to Father’s Day in this godforsaken land is a display of self-effacing flasks? Okay, there were also a few sporty water bottles underneath, since these folks also trend jockish, but still! This makes the consumer parade of Mother’s Day look downright sentimental!