If a young writer needed a crash-course in novelistic eccentricity, a gig at Guinness World Records might seem a good place to start. Unfortunately, the official record-keeper of the world's longest penis extension (3 inches) and the maximum number of naked passengers transportable via roller coaster (81) takes itself very seriously -- meaning, employees like Ms. Jerramy Fine, responsible for a novelization of her time at Guinness, should expect a reaction to their work as outsized as their employer's records.

According to the Telegraph, Fine was summoned to a meeting at work the day after HarperCollins accepted her book proposal. Fine recalls,

"One sentence in the proposal ran: 'Friday morning pasties were changed to bagels. This was the biggest scandal to hit the office in years.' They countered that this 'belittles what we do in the office on a daily basis and is very detrimental.' [Ed's note -- This is what they get for wanting a more realistic application of the word "scandal."]

"They also were upset about an anecdote I had about the longest penis extension. They told me that I could have chosen something 'more wholesome, like the 100 metre dash'."

Soon after, HarperCollins dropped her proposal, saying that it did not "actively seek litigation." Nonetheless, Fine's agent, Ted Gideonse, claims the threats from Guinness' lawyers only make the book "more valuable," meaning, "more scandalous," meaning, "come hither, St. Martin's."