Cottage industry: (n) any small-scale, loosely organized industry.

Here’s the ideal:

Making cottage cheese in my cottage to establish a cottage industry.

I don’t know whether it would work, but it certainly has appeal. A great sales line, don’t you think?

“Where did you make that cottage cheese?”

“Well, darn tootin’! I made it right there in my cottage.”

“Well—that gives you quite a cottage industry.”

It would be so simple. Of course, there would have to be a large market for cottage cheese, and you would have to compete with the Big Barons of Cottage Cheese—whoever that would be.

But if you were actually able to sell enough cottage cheese from your cottage to have a cottage industry, you could go back to your cottage every night and do cottage things, knowing that all the bills for your cottage were paid, and settle into your cottage for a good night of sleep, while your tummy digested your meal of cottage cheese.

It’s a perfect story.

Maybe that’s why it doesn’t work.

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