Today was my day off

There is a small organic market on a corner in Eugene. Sundance Natural Foods. I rode my bicycle there this evening, a beautiful balmy evening, and I bought a beer. I bought one twelve ounce bottle of Workingman's Brown Ale by Dick's Brewing Company. I also bought an artisan loaf with cilantro polenta and cracked pepper and a small wedge of smoked gouda. The total came to seven dollars, eighty four cents and printed on the receipt was a quotation:

"If God Dwells inside us like some people say, I hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting" --Jack Handy

I didn't notice the quotation until later, after the bread and cheese washed down with some brown. I was sitting on a gravebench in the pioneer Masonic cemetery, four blocks deep off the market, watching the beautiful summr evening relax into the sunset. I had taken off my shoes; my knife sat next to me. The empty bottle sat next to the knife and I sat watching the colors filter through the trees' silhouettes reaching towards eachother.
I took the reciept out of my pocket, looked at it, read it and put it back. I picked up the bottle and examined the label. It featured a man with his sleeves really rolled up. He was binding grain with his bare hands and behind him were hills of fields. More work. I looked at him and I felt guilty, like I was drinking his beer while he was still on the clock. I was sitting here, feeding myself metaphorical enchiladas, and all he got was the 5 cent deposit.
Seriously. I recalled my thoughts during my meal. How pleasantly the brown ale soothed my tongue after the peppercorns had bitten it. How comfortably the cilantro had rested against the smoky cheese. And how refreshing was it to imagine myself tilting the bottle back, silhouetted against the setting sun, draining off the last drop of the day.
I looked again at the man in the bottle, sweating under the blue hot sky and I hoped that he would be finished soon and that he could go home after a long day and sit and watch it come to a close. I hoped that on his days off, when his evenings were free like mine was tonight, he came up to a good sight, took off his shoes, ate a snack and drank it all in.

www.dicksbeer.com