Buzz and Me

By: Kris Kahrs
(Notice: no adjectives or adverbs were injured during the writing of this post.)

I dropped off my son at school and drove to the supermarket to begin the day’s errands.

“To infinity and beyond,” said a voice in the backseat. It turns out my mother-in-law was right when she said an AED defibrillator would come in handy in the car. My son had left his Buzz Lightyear toy in a predisposing position. Every bump in the road pushed the talk button.

I tried to ignore Buzz, but he was determined to start a conversation. “Be alert. Adventure can come from any direction.”

When I talked to my husband on the phone, he asked, “who’s with you?”

“No one, I’m alone.”

“Whose voice do I hear in the background?”

“Buzz Lightyear. He’s turning out to be a regular ‘Chatty Cathy’.”

“All right Ranger,” chirped Buzz from the backseat, “which direction should we go.”

“O.k. then,” said my hubby hanging up.

At every stop, I would forget to reach into the backseat to turn Buzz over and give us both some peace.

I threw the library books on the back seat and checked my list of things to do. “Mmmm, interesting,” he said, “We’d better take a closer look at this.”

It was inevitable that I began to answer him. “We don’t have time to look at the books now, Buzz. I’ve only got a half hour to get the errands done. Then I have to get home, finish edits for this week’s rewrites, write a blog post, tweet, do a couple Facebook entries and send out at least one publisher query.”

“To infinity and beyond!”

“Yes, it feels like that, but I admire your spunk.”

I wrapped up the errands and returned home, carrying groceries, books, jackets and Buzz into the general destruction that is known on my tax forms as my place of residence. At this point, Buzz got a little judgmental announcing, “Looks like Zurg was here.”

“Oh yeah and your space-ranger-dude bachelor pad is a temple,” I snorted doubtfully.

I sat down at my dining room-table-cum-desk, laid Buzz next to my laptop and set to work. After a quarter hour’s worth of the brain-wave patterns of a cat watching Oprah and no ideas forthcoming, I gave in and decided to ask Buzz for help. I figured he couldn’t be that much different from the I-Ching, or a Magic 8-Ball for that matter, the vocabulary was just as limited.

“Buzz,” I said, “I’m not sure where I’m going with this character. What do you think?”

“Be alert. Adventure can come from any direction.”

I took this to mean that I needed to stay open to the universe. But I needed more detail so I gave it one last effort. “Buzz, where exactly should I go with my main character?”

“To infinity and beyond.” Close enough. I got on with it.

Editor: L. Fernandez