Ben and the giant setup guy

“Who made this?” Ben asked me as we were driving home.

“Who made what?” I asked, looking around.

“This,” he said. “All of this.”

“You mean, this road, or the mountains?”

He nodded. “Yes. Who made all of this.”

He'd never asked me this before. I let it sink in. I thought about how I should answer? Do I just give him a doctrine, do I confuse him with scientific methods, what do I do? Then it hit me. I knew exactly what to do.

I punted.

“Who do you think made all of this?” I asked him.

He paused, and thought about it.

“The giant setup guy.” he said.

I nodded. Not bad. “A lot of people think that everything was made by a giant setup guy,” I told him.

“Yes,” he said. “He made this stuff. He made the houses. He made the roads. He made the forest.”

He paused and thought about it some more. “And he made flashlights. I like flashlights.”

“Is he nice or mean?” I asked him.

“He's good,” Bennett answered. Then, after a moment, he said, “and he's evil.”

We drove on. He looked out the window. This is easier than I thought, I told myself.

A couple of minutes passed.

“I think he's invisible,” he wondered. “No one can see him. But sometimes you can see him, if he wants you to. When you're in his house, though, he becomes invisible.”

“Who told you about the giant setup guy?” I asked.

He shrugged. “No one.”

“Have you ever seen the giant setup guy?”

“Just once,” he told me. “A long time ago.”

I love it when kids answer that way.