I was reading some post on an old-timers’ Facebook group about snow days. I think it was just “Today’s a snow day. What are your snow day memories?” or something pretty anodyne. And one of the answers was this tirade about how in my day we walked a mile to school just to find out if it was open, and it was open because we weren’t softies back then, or whatever (I’m probably combining more than one actual answer, but you get the idea.)

It reminded me of something else I was reading about being an introvert vs. extrovert, or something—I don’t even remember how I came upon it. (This is the problem with surfing the web. I can tell you a million headlines or threads or anecdotes, but I don’t know where they were from or if they’re true or why I even saw them.)

It was a relatively introverted, just-the-facts, I don’t like small talk kind of person talking about how the other people in his family are the opposite. His example was asking if the plumber is coming Thursday. His ideal answer would be “Yes” or “no.” But his father’s typical answer went more like “Yeah, he’s coming Thursday, he was supposed to come Wednesday but he didn’t have the part, you know with just-in-time logistics they never have anything they need, and he’ll probably have to come back because the part won’t be any good anyway, I should’ve bought it myself, he probably ripped me off but it’s easier, you know. but that’s what free trade and importing crap from China gets you.”

It’s a funny thing—when you put it that way, I see how ridiculous it is, and yet that’s also kind of my natural answer. I totally, completely get how all of those things are related. There are people who can answer “Yes, the plumber is coming Thursday,” and there are people for whom logistics and trade and politics and the quality of the workforce and consumer products these days follow as seamlessly from a question about the plumber’s schedule as the Corpus Christi procession follows from transubstantiation. (I like my Eucharist analogies, what can I say.)...