It’s been raining a lot here, and the primary reason I dislike rain is because it’s wet. I hate being wet. It has something to do with the childhood trauma of my mom insisting I get clean. Getting clean was a huge waste of time because I’d just get dirty again the next day. Sometimes I tricked my mom by letting the shower run; meanwhile, I’d sit beside the shower and read a comic book until the mirror fogged up, which indicated an adequate amount of time had passed. Then I’d sprinkle a few drops of water on my head and presto–all clean!
Perhaps my favorite reason to farm is the tan. Grease, oil, dirt, manure, and all-around general barn grime have a way of clinging nicely to farmers and giving our skin a natural patina. Back when I used to plant a half-acre of tomatoes each summer, my skin would be tinted green when I came in from picking. My wife would banish me to the shower, and the runoff would actually glow with chlorophyll, which was pretty neat. Seeing how dirty I can get shower runoff is now the only good reason I know of to plant a half-acre of tomatoes to pick myself.
Truth be told, I hate being wet almost as much as I hate being cold. And if I’m wet and cold, I might as well be hot, which I abhor. You might think that someone who hates rain and temperatures hot and cold would be a pretty bad farmer, and you’d be right. But rest assured I’m a bad farmer not because of atmospheric predilections, but solely because of my personality.
Recently I took the Myers-Briggs personality test, and the results confirmed my suspicions after ten years of trying to farm. It had a list of careers to avoid for my personality type, and “farmer” was at the top. If only I would have taken the test ten years ago, I would have saved myself a lot of misery (I’m thinking, just off the top of my head–the barbed fencing staple in my foot, an embarrassing wrestling match with a pig, and my personal record of twenty-three bee stings in one day.)
According to the test, I’m an INFJ, or what’s known on the internet as a Creative Nurturer. According to said internet, INFJ is the rarest personality type (we’re not benefiting from the whole survival of the fittest thing) at a mere 2% of the general population. My research indicates few scientific surveys have been done of personality types at the sale barn, but my own anecdotal observations suggest very few Creative Nurturers leave the sale barn alive. Case in point, once I tripped and nearly fell off the catwalk and plummeted into the bovines below. Furthermore, I only know of one other possible INFJ in agriculture around here, and he works at a beet farm as a cult leader. If he walked into the sale barn, he’d probably be stoned to death.
So to sum up, the point here, of course, is I farm not because I’m genetically predisposed to be good at it, but because I don’t like taking showers. Being dirty makes me content, at least when I’m not hot, cold, or wet.
What Myers-Briggs personality type are you? Is it a good fit for farming? Do you hate certain atmospheric conditions?
