Can I get some eucalyptus with that?

I will say this, friends...I am beginning to hate public transporation. It is beginning to give me hives. It is beginning to make me wish that I lived on a small island in the Pacific and spent my days feasting on mangoes, lounging in rattan chairs, and enjoying the cool breeze provided by the palm leaf fanning over me, courtesy of some oiled-up poolboy named Jacques.

Ok, that has nothing to do with public transportation. I just wanted an excuse to sear into your minds the image of an "oiled-up poolboy named Jacques." My apologies.

Nevertheless, back to my contempt for public transport. Being the kind individual I am, and because I probably would have suffered some severe glares at work on Monday morning had I not done the following, I ventured into Brooklyn on a Saturday night to cover a front desk shift at work. The L train was not running, so I walked to Union Square, took the Q to Canal Street, took the J to Marcy Ave, took the B60 bus to Morgan Ave, and walked the rest of the way.

This took me an hour and I really, truthfully hated 58 of those minutes.

The 2 minutes that I enjoyed, however, were the 2 minutes in which a man lumbered up to the B60 bus stop with his buddy. He was a big tall fellow, probably in his mid-30's, Marine-type haircut, brand new kicks on his feet, saggy man-pris straddling his waist. His biceps could probably crush heads and other large objects and were overrun with tattoos of the faux-tribal, pointy, sharp, barbed-wire-y variety.

Tough Guy (that's what we're calling him here) looked at his buddy and said, "Dude, I'm gonna get laid tonight." He was confident, assured. His big tree trunk thighs would be wrapped around some ladyparts later on. There was an actual exchange of high-fives.

What is missing from the above description (which is pretty mundane, in and of itself) is the fact that Tough Guy was wearing a too-tight (bicep-enhancing, perhaps) grey T-shirt bearing a large cartoon picture of two cute, doe-eyed panda bears munching on eucalyptus leaves on the front, and the sentence "I saw the World Famous Pandas!" on the back. Cartoon. Pandas.

Probably to show off his "sensitive side," is my guess. Good luck, Tough Guy. Good luck.