Egregoros

When I was a kid I used to think stoplights were controlled manually by a dude sitting in an underground control room who pushed the button for the light to change and I thought all the control room guys were conspiring against my mom to make all the stoplights turn red and make her mad, so I had an elaborate plan to steal a crowbar from Lowe's and sneak into the city storm sewer and find their control rooms and beat the shit out of them.