Our local Chamber of Commerce sent out some funeral invitations that we received in the mail today, an example of which you can see posted to the right. Instead of a cheery Christmas card, or anything that might resemble a cheery Christmas card, they sent a picture of downtown Moscow, shrouded in black, and emblazoned with a censorious exhortation to the local shopping community. If you buy local you are resisting bye local, and if you shop Amazon, where nobody yells at you for not wearing a mask, you selfish human being, you are hastening the deaths of numerous local businesses.
Somehow we never seem to catch the real offender, though you might think that the Chamber of Commerce should be able to figure it out. A number of small businesses have already shuttered for good here in Moscow, as has also happened all across the country. Many of those that are still operating are in the ICU, with our mayor and city council standing on their oxygen hose. When this has deleterious effects, surprise!, the Chamber of Commerce then sends out a card that tells more people to come visit these hospitalized small businesses. You can’t actually come inside and see them, but you can stand outside their windows and wave at them from the hospital parking lot. While you are at it, you can wave at the people standing on the oxygen hose.
To their credit, the people standing on the oxygen hose have furrowed brows, and they seem to be very concerned.
All over town, there are big signs in the doors of small businesses telling the public the various conditions under which they are welcome. But if they meet those conditions, there is nothing stopping other customers from yelling at them anyhow. You have to wear a mask from the door of the restaurant to your table, at which point you can take it off — isn’t science wonderful? — and why business has dropped precipitously is a grand mystery to these people.
But hey. At least we can still blame the people we chased off. We ran them down the street, throwing rocks after them. When we got tired of doing that, we stopped, and yelled after them, “Hey! Where are you going?”