I was passing by a funeral home today when I noticed a sign in the window that said:

“No cost pre-planning available.”

I read this to mean that cost pre-planning was not available. (This is, after all, what the sign says.) I thought this was an odd thing to put in the front window, since people probably want to have the ability to pre-plan the cost of their funeral.

Of course, after looking at it for another moment, I realized what they meant was:

“No-cost pre-planning available.”

Ah, yes. That one little hyphen would make it a much less confusing sign.