Where are Pete and Joey laid off from?
Pete and Joey drive their 1960 Chevrolet Impala from their home on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia to Toronto with the hope of meeting up with their relatives in the city who might be able to help them find jobs; but their relatives hide from what they see as the pair's uncouth behaviour and the two are set adrift in the city. The men find jobs at a local ginger-ale bottler for $80 per week, a job with tough working conditions that doesn't pay much better than what they could have had back home. They fill their days smoking, drinking beer, and hitting on young women along Toronto's busy Yonge Street strip.
They soon turn their good fortune into residency in a small apartment, which they decorate with centerfolds from men's magazines and movie posters. Both men start romances; Joey decides to get married when his girlfriend, Betty, becomes pregnant. He pursues a credit-driven lifestyle undreamt of back home with his wife, buying a new colour television, stereo, and furniture on an installment plan.
Disaster strikes when Pete and Joey get laid off at the end of the summer and the trio are forced to move to a smaller, less-comfortable apartment. Pete and Joey find new jobs washing cars and resetting pins in a bowling alley but at much smaller wages than what they received at the bottling factory. Tensions mount at the crowded living situation and the lack of money begins to wear on them, and Betty tells Joey she will soon need to stop working at her waitressing job because of her pregnancy. Pete accuses Joey of not making enough money to support his share of the costs, and Betty resents Pete for making the accusation.
local ginger-ale bottler