My Brush With [Fame]

I’m pretty certain that [Famous Person] had no idea what was about to hit him when he turned up to GT’s party and got introduced to some girl who looked like Liberace-in-make-up-and-heels.

“Eeeekkkkkkkk!” I squealed as I shook his hand just that little bit too vigorously, in a “You! It’s really you!” kind of way. “I’m such a big fan!”.

[Famous Person], for his part, kindly listened to me while I prattled on (and on) about some early highlights from his career.

“Oooh, I remember you did [very cool thing] and I was only 14 and I thought you were the coolest person on the planet!” I gushed. And after a bit more small talk about how we knew our hostess GT, I went back to incoherent gushing: “You! [Very cool thing]! Cool!”

“Uh, I think you’ll find [Other Person Altogether] did that [very cool thing],” [Famous Person] gently informed me.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

“Yes. Yes, you’re right…” I said, realising I had totally mixed up his early career highlights with someone else’s. Good one. Time for a feeble joke: “Is [Other Person Altogether] coming to the party?”

[Famous Person] luckily laughed at my joke and it was then that I got to realise that [Famous Person] was way cooler than any [very cool thing] he might have done circa 1985 and, in fact, had gone on to have a much more impressive career than I had even known. That’ll teach me not to more thoroughly cyber-stalk famous people before I meet them.

Anyway, his wife, [Mrs Famous Person], was also very lovely and mercifully tolerant of this strange person gushing all over her husband. There was only one slightly awkward moment, however, when she told me that she’d been in the film  ‘Classification Board’ and I got all excited that she was a movie star but, after some clarification, it turned out she had actually been ON the Film Classification Board. I was kind of relieved because I hadn’t actually seen ‘Classification Board’, although I’ve heard it’s quite good.

The conversation was helped along by the fact that the friend the [Famous Couple] had come to the party with had just bought a piece of art – an etching, in fact. It was therefore only natural that [Mrs Famous Person] should challenge him to use the “Would you like to come up and see my etching?” line on an attractive single woman at the party.

“In fact, there was that really attractive girl standing next to you at the bar, holding a goblet,” [Mrs Famous Person] said.

“Indeed, I complimented her on her goblet,” Etching Man said.

“As long as you didn’t compliment her on her gobletS and say you wanted to sip from them, that’s a good start,” I remarked.

“There’s the girl over there!” [Mrs Famous Person] whispered, pointing very discretely.

We all looked to where she was pointing.

“Oooh, that’s my childhood friend!” I exclaimed brightly. “Let’s get her over here.”

It didn’t take long for Etching Man to drop the line on my childhood friend. I felt he needed further coaching, however.

“Pssst….” I whispered. “You should offer to buy her a drink.”

He offered to buy her a drink, saying something along the lines of “Let me refill your goblet”.

“Pssst…” I whispered again. “Now, you should offer to buy me a drink so it doesn’t look so obvious.”

Yes, there I was, revealing my true colours, having had no hesitation in pimping out my childhood friend to get in with the [Famous People] and then grifting their friend for a drink.

Still, at the end of the evening, [Famous Person] gave me a hug (A HUG!) and said he would send me a copy of his most recent book. Although, now that I think about it, I expect it’s probably called something like ‘Restraining Order’ and that it has to be personally hand-delivered to me by a very special courier… With a bit of luck, though, it will have [Famous Person]‘s signature on it and that, in my mind, is a result. [Famous Person]!!

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