World's saddest "literary" claim to fame

My biggest dream is to walk into a bookstore and see my novel, with my name (pretentious middle initial and all) printed across the spine, nestled snugly between other hardbacks on a shelf. I’m not greedy; I don’t require one of those cardboard stands displaying dozens of copies of my bestseller or even placement upon that prominent “featured” shelf at the end of a bookcase; a single copy of my masterpiece within a non-“adult” bookstore will suffice. I’ll even autograph it – for free.

Becoming a published novelist, however, requires something I don’t have: a published novel. Heck, I don’t even have an unpublished novel. I do, however, have an incredibly goofy photograph of myself tunneling through a blue whale’s heart, and it is with this image that I can finally claim a microscopic segment of bookstore real estate.

Let me explain: My husband, Matt, took the photograph in early 2013 during our visit to Te Papa, New Zealand’s national museum and art gallery. The children’s wing contains a fiberglass model of a blue whale’s heart. Designed to scale, the model is roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle -- the vintage kind with the trunk in the front. Visitors are allowed – nay, encouraged – to climb inside the slippery aorta, and so I did – and demanded Matt take a photograph. The photo made its way onto our travel blog, earned semi-viral status for all the wrong reasons (click on the "Oh god I can't unsee it" link) eventually caught the attention of the Guinness Book of World Records.

 Months went by. I forgot about the whole affair – until this past Sunday. On Monday, I drove to Barnes and Noble.

“Can you tell me where you keep the Guinness Book of World Records?” I asked a 20-something female clerk.

The clerk escorted me from one end of the store to the other, a stroll just long enough to generate a pregnant pause I felt compelled to fill.

“I want to see it because I think I might be in it,” I gushed. I suddenly realized this statement implied I had earned a spot in the book by vanquishing some record, i.e., performing the most number of chin-ups from the “human flag” position or crafting the globe’s largest toast mosaic (actual Guinness-recognized honors). So I added a clarification:

“Um, my husband took a picture of me climbing through a whale’s heart, and the photo editor said she might use it.”

“Oh really?”

And then, the moment of truth: We stood in awed silence before the glorious tome, a garish chartreuse-colored hardback gracing the top shelf of the “Trivia” bookcase. I lunged for the book and began flipping through the pages. The clerk, perhaps reasoning that we’d already come so far together, remained at my elbow and watched. But after a polite handful of seconds went by and I failed to locate the image, she retreated toward the information desk.

“I am in it!” I exclaimed, holding up the book to display page 30 and the baby fist-sized image of me and the plastic heart tucked near the book’s gutter (publishing lingo for “the ditch in the middle of the book”). There was my wristwatch and the white, long-sleeved shirt I wore and washed and wore and washed throughout that 6-month trip. And there was my silly expression, a look of sheer wonderment.

“Oh,” the clerk said. “Wow.” She was undoubtedly impressed. And then gone.

I pulled out my iPhone and snapped a photo of the photo and a photo of Matt’s photo credit. Then I gently placed the book back on the shelf. It was a start.