"Support local businesses", they always say! After all, small businesses are the real America or, um, something. It's a stance I can usually understand, unless you live in a small, particularly rural town, where small businesses are usually run by morons incapable of properly owning a gerbil, let alone an entire business. Absarokee, as a whole, is locally sort of infamous for this. I've lost count of how many times some local twit decided to start a restaurant, rented commercial property, made up some surprisingly professional signage, and maybe even backed it up with some decent sandwiches, only to quickly lose interest in the completely gross idea of actually having to be there and have the doors unlocked so customers can come in. Despite actually having a local customer base more than willing to give them money, a mere month or two after starting up their shiny new business, they'd give up and shut their doors, forever, due to laziness. Meanwhile - and this is something that seems to happen more in Columbus - plenty of thoroughly awful local businesses manage to keep going, despite having no discernible positive traits, I suppose because it's far easier in the long-term to commit oneself to less-than-half-assed work. In no case in recent memory has this been more obvious to me than in an extended kerfuffle involving the only plumber in town apparently.
