Greetings from the wine store. I’ll be here all day.

This morning I was at the post office shipping some extremely sharp pencils to Canada. Standing in line behind me? Pete Seeger, with a bundle of cards and packages (as usual) sent to him from fans the world over.

The clerk who was helping me ship my pencils was like, “Hey, Pete! How’s it going?” And Pete said, “Still here, I think.” I confirmed he was, in fact, still here. Then the clerk and Pete said their goodbyes …

… then things got fuckin’ buck wild up in the post office!

The clerk says to me, “God Pete looks good, huh? 90 years old!” I said something about the power of clean living … then a big guy ambled up and growled, “Yeah, he’s a freeloader. He’s been livin’ off the working people his whole life.”

Umm … did my post office clerk get very pissed at this guy? Hmm, lemme check. First she was like, “What are you talking about? Pete Seeger’s not a freeloader.” And this guy started talking about how Pete lives for free and we all pay for it — oh, and then he referred Pete Seeger’s “bunch of pot-smoker friends,” which was when I wanted to say, “HELLO? HOW DO I APPLY FOR THAT POSITION? I WANNA SMOKE A FAT SKULL BONG WITH PETE SEEGER!” but something inside me told me that this guy ranting about Pete Seeger at the post office wasn’t a reliable source of objective information about Pete Seeger.

Anyway, the angry guy left in a huff mumbling about how “Pete Seeger’s always protesting everything,” which actually made me laugh, because truthfully? Pete Seeger does protest a lot of stuff — but still, cut him some slack: the man freakin’ wrote “If I Had A Hammer,” am I right people or what?

THEN my post office clerk was so discombobulated about her argument with the grumpy man, she rang up a money order for $1.25 and added it to my receipt. Then she was like, “Why did I do that? You didn’t ask for a money order. See, [NAME REDACTED] got me so upset, talking about Pete Seeger, I got flustered. How can he say Pete’s a freeloader? Does he know how much volunteering he does for the kids?” etc. etc. Basically she went OFF and in my five years of using this post office, I’d never heard this clerk talk so much. It was goddamn exhilarating!

Now I’m at the wine shop telling you about this amazing story about pencils and Pete Seeger! Does it get any more Beacon than that?

LET’S DO IT BUY THAT WINE.