At A Loss For Words

(A younger teenager comes into the store with his dad.)

Customer: “My teacher says I need to get a book for school.”

Me: “What’s the title?”

Customer: “I think it was something like ‘Col-ij-it’. Yeah, that’s definitely it.”

Me: “How would you spell it?”

Customer: “C, O, L, I, J, I, T?”

(I search, and nothing comes up.)

Me: “Do you know the author?”

Customer: “I know it was a girl. Maybe like Maryanne? Something like that?”

Me: “Do you mean you need a Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary?”

Customer: “I don’t know, but I’m not going to college or anything.”