The Buzz Lightyear Clause

Today, I am adding an update to the previous post. As I stated in that post, my wife and I have very competitive natures. This being the case, of course neither of us likes to lose. I, personally, am a very bad loser. I also stated in that post that her record started to improve. So, it became necessary to change the rules a bit to give myself an advantage in cases where she might get lucky and beat me. This gave rise to the “Buzz Lightyear Clause.”

Buzz Lightyear was the wildly popular character from the hit movie Toy Story. His most popular phrase was of course, “To Infinity and Beyond!” Can you see where this is going already? So, in those rare instances where my wife might beat me to saying “I love you more infinity,” I would counter with “I love you more infinity and beyond.”

The first time I said this she was sitting there grinning from ear to ear with satisfaction at her victory in the game. When I said it, the smile slipped from her face and she said, “You can’t do that. That’s cheating.” To which I calmly replied, “It’s the Buzz Lightyear Clause.” This bit of wit made her laugh, and the clause has become a permanent fixture to the game.

In actuality the game has sort of turned into parallel games. The first being who can say “I love you more infinity” and the second who can say “I love you more infinity and beyond.” Thus it might actually be possible for each of us to win. This lucky stroke of genius served to both fuel our dual competitive natures and allow us both to walk away winners. Which only served to make the game all that more fun.