Cars

So this time Abigail and I were in the car on the way home from dropping off her sister at a birthday party.

"Why do cars have horns?" she asked.

Let me start by saying that this question disappointed me a bit. First off, it wasn't at the level of her usual questions. Moreover, as I rapidly realized that this was a question I might treat in this blog, I not only wondered about how I felt about such a pedestrian question, I wondered what my reader(s?) would think about this question.

Would s/he/they think I honk the horn a lot? Or not at all? What would they deduce about my driving based on the simple fact that Abigail asked me this question? And, what would s/he/they think of such a boring question coming from this heretofore thoughtful child?

I didn't find an answer to any of that as I evaluated this question of hers. So, I got to the task of explaining why cars have horns, and how they can be useful. I used the horn as a metaphor for language between the big machine on wheels and the outside world, be it other cars or people, with which the car could communicate and make clear its intentions.

As usual, Abigail seemed happy to have this response and spent the rest of the ride looking out the window at the lovely pre-Spring weather we so often have in February.