Normally, I look at the Sundance catalog in much the same way one would peruse the Nieman Marcus Christmas Book: Oh my yes, those 10 acres in the Paradise Valley sure do look purty, but I left the $2.3 million in my other pants. Still, even pragmatic (read: cheap) me has her moments of weakness, and the A to Z Wordsmith Hooks were mine.
Chip and I must have spent a couple of hours first justifying the purchase and then, critically, deciding what our hooks should spell out. That probably took another week. Still, we went ahead and ordered them and were only mildly disappointed to find out that they were on back-order until June. Yes, June, because we placed the order in May. Since then, we have received three of our six letter hooks. A...S...O. I like to play wordgames, but I can't think of a thing to spell with those three letters, unless it's a phonetic rendering of how I'm feeling about Robert Redford and his pretentious catalog at this very moment.
The latest from the email-bots at Sundance is that the rest of our word should arrive by mid-November. Meanwhile, the company continues offering the letters as if they were, you know, available in their catalog and online. When I called a few months back to complain, I was told that their artisans are working day and night to fill our orders, but that the shipments they've received have only put a dent in the backlogs that existed before I even ordered. Frickin' lazy artisans.
Oh, and the word we were planning to spell? RADOST--it means happiness or joy in Czech. Because that's totally what I'm feeling.