four words: dic-tion-ar-y

i realized, to my chagrin, that i no longer own a dictionary. i have, or rather, i did. what became of it between moves remains a mystery, one part book-loan black hole and one part thrift store. i have a french-english dictionary and more concordances than any monk could shake a quill at. but no dictionary. so i went into a store today, one of those office supply-like ones (one part technology, one part idiocy) to inquire if they had any. "any whats?!" said the store clerk. "dictionaries." i repeated. "oh, well, we have some electronic ones." "no, i just want a regular old book kind, you know, made of paper." "ummm...i think they come in spanish too," she said, still not grasping my query. "the electronic ones?" "yeah". "so you don't have any that aren't electronic?" "right. but they come in spanish." "i got that part. ok, thanks for your time." "no problem. are you sure you don't want to look at the electronic ones?" "i'm sure, thanks again. plus i don't speak spanish."