IS it any wonder that only a miserly eight per cent of businesses in the north claim to have any sort of workable Brexit plan in place?
Another day, and another new phrase has been thrown into the mix in the form of a border 'buffer zone'.
Really, though, it's just another day of convoluted and conflicting statements and ongoing uncertainty - like every day has been for businesses since waking up on that fateful June 23 morning in 2016.
And unless traders are given definitive solutions as to what will happen after March next year, they couldn't care less if David Davis gambols naked along every inch of the 310-mile border.
This latest notion that would see Northern Ireland have a joint regime of UK and EU customs regulations, and a 10-mile wide "special economic zone" on the border, thus avoiding checks, will have its fans as well as its naysayers.
But like so much of what has gone before and which has been discussed seemingly ad infinitum, unless there are viable arrangements on the table, businesses are simply getting on with it.
And so they ought to, because in light of the ongoing economic and political uncertainty, and any firm lack of direction for more than 500 days now, they're too busy staying agile, showing resilience, being innovate, and contributing to the communities in which they operate by paying wages and taxes.
What's the point in expending time and energy worrying about the latest Alice in Wonderland instalment when they've got to make ends meet?
It's become almost cliched to insist "We need clarity and certainty, because time is running out.”
Until any sort of definitive solution to breaking the deadlock over future customs arrangements on this island is rubber-stamped in Brussels, businesses will go on looking after themselves, looking aghast and looking away.
