The goverment and the city lights...

When I was little, and for a little while when I was old - before I thought about what I was thinking and said: "What the heck?" - I believed that the street lights were turned on by a button in my Dad's car.

I am not sure where this thought arrived from.
I don't remember anyone saying it.
I don't remember coming to it myself.

It just was.

Which was why I didn't even know that it was there amongst things that needed to eventually be deleted from my brain.

(Funny thing: I even know what the button looked like... like I imagined it in my head so often that it actually existed.)

This morning I drove Justin to school. He missed his bus, and off we went.

On the way back M asked: "Why are the way-up-lights off?"

I said they turned off in the day-time, when the sun was up.

She said: "Who turns them off?"

I said a computer.

She said: "Your computer?"

I said, no the city's.

She said: "Who is the city?"

I said, sighing, I don't know, the people in charge, the people we elect to be in charge, the government. (Actually, I said goverment, and then I said loudly, enunciating, GOVER-N-MENT. I am from Utah, you know.)

Then E joined in: "What's the government?"

And I thought, but didn't say:

"You know, actually, there is a button in my glove compartment. And if I push it, the lights turn off. And if I push it again, they turn on."

So much easier than the goverment.

For reals.