Neurotypical here and yeah my brain often works this way and I believe it does for many others. What’s missing in this vignette are social skills from both parties.

Abruptly shifting topics like that often works better in a conversation with some sort of segue or acknowledgment of the shift: “This is off of that topic but I have a random question.”

The second party could reasonably be confused but when the thought process was explained to them they could have just accepted it and moved on without being denigrating.

So they both just need better social skills is all that I see.

This seems right. Their mind wanders, too, but they don't mention the tangents that come up, or if they do, they specifically state why they're now thinking about the new topic.

I think it's also the speed and number of connections leading to the topic change. I think many neurotypicals would jump from the carnival to the rodeo, or to the bee story, but they wouldn't jump all the way to wondering about wasps from talking about the carnival in one go.

From the outside, the topic change is so different that neurotypicals can't follow the connections.

I never would have thought that a random post would chance my world view. I am genuinely stumped.