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The pandemic seems a good starting point to measure the foundering of America’s p’s and q’s, seeing as how it produced the equivalent of a national nervous breakdown and pried a deeply divided country even further apart.

Viewed this way, minding our p’s and q’s is less about proscriptive notions of correctness, and more about mindfulness, self-discovery and proper conduct.

“I was like, ‘This is going to be a 10-minute phone call, check my background, P’s and Q’s, whatever,’” UW director of social media Hadley Heck recalls of her job interview last summer.

“The last thing a head coach wants to do is talk to a social media candidate over the phone on a Saturday in July when he’s off. I was like, ‘This is going to be a 10-minute phone call, check my background, P’s and Q’s, whatever.’

“I have to watch my p’s and q’s. But God has supplied all my needs and I’m not complaining,” said Huffman, who will spend much of the season volunteering at food and clothing banks in her hometown of Greenville, Ohio.