The jabberjaws on TV were locked on the topic of “government intrusion.”

During a lull, my mind drifted to something I’d been told about a granddaughter: She told her parents she liked “the carrots with lettuce on them, too.”

In her three-year experience as a foodie, you see, she’d only experienced those prepeeled and packaged little orange torpedoes. To her, those were carrots. She’d never seen carrots like Bugs Bunny munched until, at the grocery, she spied a bunch and asked what they were. She accepted that they were carrots — but decided the green stems must be lettuce.

Hearing that story, I decided, it being spring and all, that on my next stop at a garden store, I’d get some seeds and, with the granddaughter, grow some carrots — real carrots. But then one of the jabberjaws shouted over another jabberjaw something about how shocked the colonists would be over “what we’re becoming” and I decided to marry the two notions in a mental exercise: What involvement would government have in 2010 if a grandfather decided to plant a carrot patch with a granddaughter?

It got pretty involved.

First, if the grandfather took the child with him to the garden store, he could be fined or jailed unless she was strapped into a government-approved safety seat. Of course, it could save her life, too.

And with or without her as a passenger, the vehicle itself would have been built to meet hundreds of government-set standards, ranging from the shatter characteristics of glass to fuel efficiency.

Fuel would be required, meeting government refining standards and from a pump subject to government checks for accuracy. And Mississippi and federal gas taxes would be collected at 37.2 cents per gallon.

The twosome would travel to the garden store on a government-built road with signs and markings and traffic lights meeting government-approved designs and into the store parking lot with appropriate numbers of spaces the government says must be reserved for the disabled and with landscaping that meets appearance standards.

Inside, a terra cotta pot might be selected for the planting. If the pot were made in another country, it would be subject to a vast array of import and export controls.

The carrot seeds themselves, at least the better varieties, might be a hybrid developed at a government-supported institution and treated with a substance developed or approved by government-funded researchers to help with germination.

A decision to buy potting soil would mean the blend has been cleansed to pass government benchmarks to guard against spreading of harmful microbes and tiny pests. Can’t have dirty dirt, you know.

And the whole purchase would be subject to the state’s 7 percent general sales tax and paid for with money, of which government controls the printing and supply, or with a credit card. If it’s the latter, the government says the credit card company must now tell the consumer that if he’s paying only the minimum balance, the granddaughter could have grandchildren by the time the debt is retired.

The clerk who accepts payment must be being paid a government minimum salary. He or she is also the focus of government initiatives of all sorts including the Social Security Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Medicare, the Internal Revenue Code, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act and many, many more.

If the grandfather and granddaughter decide to use yard dirt, subject to a mortgage agreement entered under state and federal truth-in-lending and myriad other regulations, a soil sample could be sent to Mississippi State University where a government staff would evaluate it and make recommendations regarding enhancing its fertility.

If it didn’t fall from the sky, water to help the carrot seeds grow might come from a tap. If so, it would pass government criteria for human consumption and the household would have to have been warned if a breach in the piping could have allowed contaminants to leach into the system.

Assuming a miracle of nature occurred and the carrots did mature, the grandfather and granddaughter could pluck them from the soil, clean them in the government-approved water and peel them with a peeler that has passed government tests for safety. In the event the garden flops, crop disaster coverage probably wouldn’t be available. However, the grocer would still have plenty of the torpedoes. And their packaging, in government-approved plastic, would bear government-required labels to dutifully report a 128 gram serving of carrots contains 53 calories, no fats or cholesterol, a little sodium, a little sugar, a smidgen of protein and lots of vitamin A.

Government intrusion?

Hate to break it to the jabberjaws, but government is and has been deeply entwined in every aspect of our lives for a long time.

Nothing new there.

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Charlie Mitchell is executive editor of The Vicksburg Post. Write to him at Box 821668, Vicksburg, MS 39182, or e-mail cmitchell@vicksburgpost.com.