The claims to fame contest

“So what’s your biggest claim to fame? I mean, meeting a famous person, something like that.”
This seemed an odd question considering we’d just met, having cocktails on adjacent stools at a Bahamas beach bar, but I decided to play along.
“My biggest claim to fame may be to have picked up John Ashbery at the Denver airport in my 1964 Cadillac Sedan de Ville.”
“I agree that the Cadillac is famous, but who’s John Ashbery?”
“Never heard of him?”
I could tell she never had.
“And your biggest claim to fame?”
“I was one of the people singing whimaway on –”
“The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
“Wow! How’d you guess?”
“It’s the only whimaway that’s famous as far as I know.”
“Right.”
“And you were one of the girls singing that?”
“I was!”
She sucked on her straw and gave me a bright sunshiny smile.
I could tell this impromptu communication was going places. Heck, it might even develop into a deep relationship, and all because of fame.

– James Steerforth (© 2016)