Lagniappe

  

Sometimes I can't sleep at night.

Months ago I found myself face to face with my monitor at 3 a.m. as I perused seejanework.com. Office supplies have cheered me up since 3rd grade, when I convinced my mother that circular reinforcement stickers were indeed on the supply list. At 3:18 a.m. my finger nearly pushed the mouse to select CHECKOUT and at 3:19 a.m. I had to step back and assess my mental capacity at such an hour. In my cart was a mustard yellow leather dictionary on clearance for only $120. You can see right here that the normal fashion dictionaries are $180. Oh, and they sell patent leather dictionaries, too. Could you die? I emptied my cart and went back to bed, where I probably dreamt about a cheap paperback thesaurus.

I've wanted the Oxford English Dictionary ever since I read The Professor and the Madman, a book that tells how the dictionary was written. The only hiccup is that it's 20 volumes and $1200. (You can see why the mustard yellow clearance version was so tempting.) I love books, especially beautiful hardbound books. Greg does not love books. He thinks they're a waste of trees and space and time. It's okay. We've managed to stay happily married these 15 years despite opposite tastes in everything from music to desserts.

To overcome our differences we date in the middle of the week while the Alpine School District is our free babysitter. On a recent date I had to drop a bag of stuff off at D.I. and inquired if we might pop in to look for pieces of board games for our wall. While I was silently cursing the lowlifes that donate incomplete games to charity Greg found How to Win Friends and Influence People for $1 and decided to buy it. Most likely the exact book I donated a year ago because I didn't realize Greg read books. We were en route to check out when I spotted my mammoth-sized navy blue dream come true. Webster's Unabridged Second Edition 1979 dictionary. Four and a half inches tall, heavier than our dog, no smell of mold or smoke.

Greg: You don't need that. Dictionaries are dumb.

Me: If you read them you'd have a better word than "dumb" to throw at me. I'm getting it.

Greg: Such a waste. Everyone uses the internet.

Me: The internet is not a dictionary.

Greg: Yes it is, even RE looks her words up on it.

Me: I am getting this. I find it ironic that you are purchasing a book about winning friends. Maybe you will win my friendship if you stop ripping on this marvel of mankind.

I love my dictionary. It is the coolest dictionary I've ever seen. The endpapers depict a giant Indo-European tree trunk that organizes languages within its branches. You've got your portrait of Noah Webster, the regular A-Z dictionary, and then....drumroll....THE SUPPLEMENTS! Dictionaries of geography, noted names in fiction, mythology, legends, foreign words and phrases, scripture proper names, common abbreviations, practical business mathematics, weights and measures, signs and symbols, U.S. Presidents, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Charter of the United Nations (okay, I'll never read that), air distance between world cities and an outdated atlas. (Remember the U.S.S.R. and Yugoslavia?)

The previous owner pressed leaves in my dictionary. They are still there. I love the giant oak leaf that is nearly 7" tall and still preserved. Thank you, previous owner, for encouraging my romantic sensibilities. My mind will make up many stories about who put the leaf there and why. Maybe I will think about that the next time I can't sleep instead of surfing the net.

Don't forget the 24 full pages of color illustrations showcasing everything from anatomy and state flags to coelenterates and ruminants. (Look them up, I'm not telling you what they mean.) I have learned so much just from the picture pages. Robin egg blue? Forget about it! You want Great Blue Heron egg blue! There are mute swans? St. Basil's is 16th century? A chinchilla is a white, domestic cat? Microciona, you made a HUGE comeback in the 2010s. Everyone wants to decorate with you.

The irony of the whole situation is that Greg just taught me a new word. Yes, Greg taught me a word. A really good one. Lagniappe. [lan yáp] Noun. It's a sales word, which explains how he found it. Greg is the greatest salesman in the world. Lagniappe: a small gift or present added to a purchase by a tradesman as a favor to customers. I like the secondary definition: an unexpected bonus.

Just when I've resolved to read my unappreciated dictionary in solitude and walk the regal road of literacy alone, Greg drops a lagniappe in my path and reminds me why I need him.