The big red light switch part two

   You have no idea how much this bothered me.

My mother took me to a fancy restaurant. We were supposed to meet my cousin here for dinner to "celebrate" her graduation. It wasn't quit a celebration. A bit of a reunion really, but I didn't care. All that was going through my mind was the fact that there, in my room of the hotel, was a bright red light switch, and I didn't know what it did. I felt the sting of pain in my stomach that indicated that I was hungry. Made sense, I hadn't eaten since breakfast when my mother pretty much force-fed me pancakes made on the hotplate we'd been cooking on in every hotel room for the last four months. I looked at the menu nervously, trying to gauge by my mother's reactions to different suggestions exactly what I was allowed to order without expressly asking what I could and could not have. My mother had always taught me that asking what I was allowed to do was rude, and that I should just "know" especially when it came to things having to do with money.

Tonight, she was in rare form. My mother was being subtle, letting my cousin actually decide what she was going to eat. I, on the other hand, seemed ridiculously restricted. We'd gone to Das KrabHause, which wasn't the fanciest restaurant in town, but it was definitely above the Burger Haven we'd eaten at the last time she decided we had enough money to go out. I sat at the table shuddering, taking in her reactions.

"Lobster Minestrone? That sounds pretty good." I said, her expression soured.

"Or maybe Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo?" A smile. There's my dinner!

"Yeah, I'll have that."

There was a lot of boring small talk, revolving mostly around my cousin and her graduation. Mom asked a lot of questions. My cousin was living with her boyfriend after having been pretty much kicked out of her father's house out here. We hadn't met him yet, so my cousin sat shyly answering questions, but you could tell that she was getting more annoyed by the minute at my mother's questioning.

My cousin turned to me, "What about you? Are you excited to graduate someday?"

I hadn't really thought about it, I was still 16, another two years to go. My mother had picked up this idea called "UnSchooling" where I learned about all of my subjects through life experience. It was supposed to be a better way to learn because I picked up real life skills instead of just wandering around learning about history and calculus and geography. Instead I was learning about thing I wanted to know about.

Which was great, until I stumbled upon something as dastardly and mysterious as the red switch. Darn, I was trying not to think about it, and now I can't get it out of my mind again. What could it do?