In which I bowl over a serious yet pretty historian with my clever yet witty insights - or perhaps not

On Saturday, I was invited to a literary breakfast by my parents. It was all very civilised: champagne, tasty bites to eat, the company of my lovely sister An, may her exam results reflect her dazzling brilliance. Four authors had been invited to speak about their latest books. They were interviewed by well known journalists. You know, the kind of morning that is meant for clever people.

Not people with pregnancy dementia.

In between the interviews, there was time to get the authors' autographs. I'm not really into autographs - I don't get why people find them interesting. Personally written dedications I get, but you're unlikely to get that when you're standing in a line with other people and the writer has never met you before. When I do get an autograph, I use it as an excuse to meet the author and maybe have a meaningful exchange of words with them. You know, see the person behind the writing.

One of the authors was there to talk about his masterful history of the Congo. He has been hyped all over the Belgian media and he's a pretty and young guy. He was very intense in his interview, full of love for Africa and full of genuine caring for the people caught up in the recent atrocities in the Congo and surrounding countries. He didn't just write a dry history - he went to meet people who had lived through it all and recounted their stories. He even interviewed a 126 year old man who was born before the colonisation.

I'd really been looking forward to meeting him, so I was very happy to find he'd been seated at our very table. After his interview, I went up to have my book signed, but really I was hoping to have a magical meeting of minds in which we would have a brief but meaningful moment of realisation that we were kindred spirits. In another life we'd surely be good friends. You know the kind of meeting I mean.

Knowing that I've recently had problems in the intelligence department, what with my belly parasite leeching the energy and brains out of me slowly, I took An along. I gave her very clear instructions: "I get my book signed, you say something intelligent." Excellent plan. An is very intelligent. I am very good at handing over a book for a signature. With this wonderful plan in place, we approached the author. My knees were trembling a little. They do that when I'm about to talk to a caring, fiercely intelligent and not altogether bad-looking man. Bad, bad knees.

Together, we approached the lovely historian. This is when the fatal flaw in my plan was revealed: we should have considered our order of approach more carefully. As it was, my sister was behind me so I was the first to the scene. Capital mistake! I foolishly struck up a conversation without waiting for my intelligence backup.

Me: I really enjoyed your interview. 

I should have left it at that. That was fine. Fair enough, I kind of implied I enjoy hearing of atrocities and colonial horrors, but so far I'd not made any major faux pas. Now all I had to do was hand over my book and LEAVE THE CONVERSATION TO AN. She is studying to be a psychologist. It's been seven years since a parasite sucked her brain out. It's mostly grown back by now. She would have done a sterling job.

But no. My mouth has no off button.

Me: I'm looking forward to reading your book...
... well, except for the horrible bits.

Yeah. We had a gorgeous meeting of minds. He saw what a genius I am and was moved to invite me to a further extended discussion of international politics and peacekeeping protocol.

I tried to save the situation:

Me: I mean - because of the pregnancy I'm not good with descriptions of violence. I'm too hormonal and emotional.

Because he needed the explanation, with my huge stomach pushed up in his face and me blathering on. I'm sure he was delighted to know that I was looking forward terribly to reading his huge, personal and meticulously researched history of the Congo, as long as I could skip any inconveniently unpleasant bits. Because really it was quite insensitive of him not to gloss over any atrocities considering his book might also be read by pregnant women.

In fact, I should have told him I might have already read his history had it not been for the Marian Keyes novel that keeps the light off my face every night when I fall asleep underneath it. That would have established my intellectual credentials.

I have four university degrees, you know. You just can't tell because I do a really good impression of a complete moron. Damn parasites. They are eating my brains.