I always say that since I write fiction for a living, I never let the truth get in the way of a good story. But so often, I find myself in situations that I COULD NOT MAKE UP if I tried. Really.

Sometimes, they are hard to talk about as I don’t want to give away incriminating details. But here’s a story that I believe enough time has elapsed for me to tell (leaving out many specifics, again, to protect the innocent):

A while back, I went to an educator’s conference, and I was asked to stay for the author dinner. Normally, that’s a nice ego boost, people treating you like you are special. Never turn those down.

At this particular dinner, the organizers warned me that they were going to ask each of the authors to speak a little bit on how he or she got on the track he/she is on. I figured this was going to be very casual, low stress. Oh, no.

Each author was asked to speak for 5 to 7 minutes. After dinner. And there were 15 of us.

And I was number 14 on the list.

Does that sound bad? It gets worse.

The first guy is routinely on the NYT Bestseller list. And used to walk a celebrity’s dog while he lived in the YMCA. (Imagine how that feels: he’s on the NYT Bestseller list, and I, you know, published something.)

The next woman has won like 712 awards. The next woman felt honored to be a children’s book author since she didn’t learn to read until she was like 9.

I haven’t won very many awards and I learned to read at a normal time.

Then a guy comes up and has his wife sing the national anthem to the country he created in his novel (she wrote the national anthem).

Then a guy plays the flute and gives us a Native American blessing.

By this point, I am incredibly resentful of being number 14 on the list.

Then a guy gets up and raps his picture book. Which I TOTALLY would’ve done had he not beat me to it. Really.

Then a woman gets up and tells a joke. And I think, Great! I’ll tell a joke! Except then I realize that the only joke I know has a hooker and a crocodile in it. This was not the right audience.

I don’t even remember what else happened, but trust me when I say that it just got worse and worse.

Lesson learned: insist you must leave early so that you are scheduled near the beginning and not second from last. Because there is nothing interesting you can possibly say after 13 other people have talked.

Could’ve been worse — I could’ve been number 15.