Honor & Impotence: Life As A Guinness Book Of World Records Holder
Records, like bones, were made to be broken.
My life is hard. Much harder than you’d think. It’s not the fame or the money that’s difficult — I don’t have much of either. It’s hard because the damn Book is so damn heavy.
My arms are exhausted. The Book is capital “D” Dense. Full of notable people doing notable things. And here I am, just one man, holding them all in my arms.
Admiring them.
I hold of the Guinness Book of World Records because someone should.
Because someone must.
They say genius comes at a cost. For me, that cost was 26 dollars, 34 cents, and a chance at a normal life. I can’t ride a bicycle, for a start. With one arm gripping my Book, I am left with only one hand for the handlebar. I will often lose my balance, and have suffered from many terrible crashes. Even then, the Book is priority number one. A broken bone will heal, but will the Book?
The neighborhood kids usually swear at me when I fall, but I don’t care. They tell me what I do is not normal. What is normal, anyway? If we cared about normal, this Book would no longer matter. We care about exceptional. That’s who we are. Who I am.
Before I wash any wound I make sure to cover my whole arm, my Book arm, tip to pit, in saran wrap. For protection. My husband asks me if this is necessary.
“Yes,” I say. “It’s better than a moldy Book.”
My husband hates when I say that.
“‘It’s better than a moldy Book!’” he says. “That’s all I ever hear coming from your mouth!”
He doesn’t get it. Neither do my parents, for that matter. But I don’t care. They are not noteworthy people. No one will remember them. My husband is a podiatrist, for Book’s sake. What kind of pervert gets a doctorate concerning other people’s feet?
My husband hates this Book. He tells me I should put the damn thing down! Free my hands for something useful!
Like what, I wonder?
To hold his hand? To cook us dinner? To bathe our child?
No.
When he gets like that, I take the Book into our alleyway and dunk my head straight into our trash can and scream and scream and scream. I’ll scream louder than Tasha Billups, world’s loudest screamer, 1971–1996. I scream my secrets. My questions. My fears.
I NEVER WANTED A CHILD!!!
IS GARFIELD THE LASAGNA CAT A CHRISTIAN???
I USE THE VOTING BOOTH TO DRAW PICTURES OF THE CANDIDATES TEARING THEIR SHIRTS INTO RIBBONS !!! ALSO FOR CRYING!!!
And so on.
Maybe my neighbors can hear me. My husband. Our child.
It doesn’t matter. When I’m in that can, just me and my Book, I am at peace.
Does the Book have a bit of a smell from all that time in the can? Sure. So does my hair, I guess. I usually press mint leaves in-between the pages to mask the smell. It works, I think. Sometimes people tell me that I smell like a mojito.
Sometimes they don’t.
That’s the world, I suppose. Not everyone can have the same nose. The Book taught me that.
Grace Kilt holds the record for the world’s longest nose. 7.2 inches, if you’re curious. That’s a much longer nose than I have. Mine barely even cracks an inch.
I WISH I WERE GRACE KILT!!!!!
That’s what I yell, anyways.
But the dirtiest secret of all… The only secret I have yet to scream…
I don’t know if Grace Kilt does have the longest nose. I don’t even know if there is such a person as Grace Kilt. Or Tasha Billups.
I’ve never read the damn Book.
I know, I know.
But it’s true.
People assume that I’ve memorized the ugly thing inside and out. They’ve certainly never read it. I don’t think anyone has. That’s the magic of the Book–The actual records? Inconsequential. It’s the Book itself that matters.
“I’m in that Book,” record-holders say. People gasp, ask for autographs, take pictures. No-one checks.
When I hold that bastard Book, people take me at my word! They don’t simply want, no, they need me to be right. Hell, I’ve won whole trivia contests simply by stating an answer with more conviction than the judge. People trust me more. Because of my Book.
This grievous sin I commit, this breach of trust, weighs on my heart almost as much as this cinderblock of a Book weighs on my biceps. But it is part of me. Sometimes I think I’m more Book than man. So be it. We all have to be something.
Would life be easier if I put the Book down? If I “get on with it,” as my husband would say?
Sure. Undoubtedly. No question.
But if I put this Book down, someone else might pick it up.
And then who would I be?
