AN INTERVIEW WITH GUY

The following is an interview with Guy Strang. What’s that you say? He’s a fictional character and fictional characters can’t do interviews? That’s what you think!

Q: What's it like having Lana Zuckerman for a step-sister?

Well, I used to think that having Lana for a sister would be like having a rabid raccoon for a pet. Miserable, and dangerous and the opposite of anything fun. She is a pain in the neck sometimes, mostly because she’s so bossy, but I have to admit, she’s not all bad. We have a lot in common, our real parents are divorced, we go to the same school and we both like Buzz – only I’m a lot nicer to him than she is.

Q: What’s it like having Jerry Zuckerman for a stepdad?

Jerry is a very nice man, but he’s a professional clown. You really don’t want your step-father to be a professional clown. You want a step-father who doesn’t draw attention to himself and therefore doesn’t draw attention to you. A clown with huge red shoes and a musical hose nozzle draws a lot of attention.

Q: Do you think that you and Autumn Hockney will ever get back together?

This is a pretty embarrassing question. Girls in general, are not my favorite topic of conversation. I admit, I had a crush on Autumn for a while but then she dumped me for Max “Soggy-Underpants”LaMott. That was pretty humiliating, to say the least. Will we ever get back together, well, you know what they say – “never say never” then again they also say “girls are so weird” – or at least that’s what I say.

Q: Has your mom come up with any interesting recipes lately?

That depends on what you mean by “interesting”. I think it would be interesting if she came up with something that tasted good. She hasn’t done that, but she did invent a new sandwich called the Tic Tac Toe. She melts cheese on bread, then uses four sticks of black licorice to make the grid. She serves it with pickle slices and marshmallows so you can actually play a game of tic tac toe on it before you eat it – which, by the way, I don’t.

Q: Is it cool living next door to Buzz?

Totally. Our latest thing is making up a code so we can use flashlights to send messages to each other out the window when it’s dark. The only problem is that it wears out the batteries pretty fast, and sometimes the messages get messed up. Last night I could have sworn he said “How is your mosquito? I need a gumball.”

Q: Since Buzz and Lana are still dating, do you ever feel left out?

I wouldn’t exactly say they’re “dating”, unless dating means insulting and pinching each other a lot. I know they like each other, but it’s not like they’re all moony or anything the way my mom and Jerry are. They don’t call each other “sweetums” or anything gross like that. If they start doing that, trust me, I’ll be more than happy to be left out.

Q: How has Buzz changed over the years?

When I first met Buzz he was really dorky. He had bad hair and he called his mother Mama, which is okay if you live in the south but way not okay if you live around here. Now his hair is cool, and he’s basically normal, with just enough weirdness mixed in to make him fun to do stuff with. He used to be too polite, but now he knows how to belch really loud and do some other pretty gross things, which I’d better not tell you about right now or he’ll kill me.

Q: Have you and Buzz come up with any more crazy schemes since the sushi/leaf-blower incident?

What do you mean crazy? That was a great plan. Even if it didn’t turn out exactly the way we wanted it to…

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Why do grown-ups always ask that question? I think maybe they just can’t believe you’re ever going to grow up and stop hanging around the house, eating chips on the couch and leaving your dirty laundry lying around on the bathroom floor. I have NO idea what I want to be when I grow up, other than a lot taller than I am right now.

Q: Are you looking forward to Junior High?

Why would I do that? Oh, you mean, like for instance because it’ll be a lot better having a bunch of different teachers instead of just the same one all day? That could be good because if you have one of those teachers who’s hard to look at because, say, she has those kind of arms that jiggle when she writes on the board, then you only have to look at her for 45 minutes a day and then you get to move on to the next class. Yeah, I guess that would be good.

Q: Do you think you and Buzz will be friends forever?

Absolutely. Buzz is the best.