Elegy for Mer

I don't know if Mer is dead, or if Mer was even her name. She worked at the South Hills Village Mall location of Rite-Aid drugstore and wore a nametag that said Mer. She looked like a cross between Patti Smith and a less gangly Joey Ramone and seemed wrapped up in her own thoughts but also willing to share them out loud to no one in particular. I assume she was in her twenties but she could have been a bit older or younger.

Once when I was paying for candy, she looked up from the register and said "It's almost time for lunch. I love lunch." That last sentence was a sing-song slide, starting at the top of her register and going down to the lowest. It was unbridled happiness.

I

   Love

            Lunch

Why this exchange has stayed with me dormant and patiently waiting to emerge for the past twenty-six or so years is a mystery. But I know the trigger that made me recollect it.  I meant to write "me," in  an email but accidentally wrote "mer," instead. And the exchange which was was at once banal and singularly weird came flooding back.

Here's to Mer and her love of lunch.