I think that does it. You are all caught up to the current point in my story.

I completely messed things up at the beginning. I started when I was waking up in my hotel room, so I had to backtrack to explain why I was there in the first place, or more accurately why was I in a limousine at 10:45, just pulling away from the hotel.

My cellphone rang. I pulled a small piece of paper from my pocket, read the name ‘Emily’ scribbled on it, then answered the call.

“Hi, Emily,” I greeted the caller confidently, placing great emphasis on her name. There would be no belittling me over my idiosyncrasies after that.

“How can you be so irresponsible?” she snapped, revealing that my rosy forecast of ‘no belittling’ had been tragically off the mark. “You were supposed to have left half an hour ago. What happened?“

Without allowing me to respond, she continued, “Somebody is giving you fifty million dollars, and you can’t be polite enough to show up to the giveaway announcement on time? What is wrong with you?”

“Ah,” I observed, “now that’s a very interesting question. I believe that I suffer from what is called existential anxiety.”

I guess she didn’t genuinely care about my affliction, as she began to speak over me.

“Did you at least review the speech?” Emily asked, sounding not particularly hopeful.

“I did,” I replied truthfully, feeling that my perusal of the opening paragraph — and quick scroll down the message to see how long the thing was — counted as a ‘review.’

“I’m going to meet you at the front door of the conference center, to lead you back. We’ve got to hurry. You are so late that the CEO will be speaking before you get here. He is going to be very angry that he didn’t get a chance to meet you before the event. He has concerns about you.”

“What concerns?” I cried out, wounded. “Why should he have concerns about me?”

“Terrence, please,” Emily begged. “I don’t have time for this. Keep reviewing the speech, and after I hang up, please ask the driver to hurry, o.k.?”

“Yes, o.k.”

The call ended.

This Emily woman wasn’t into the whole goodbye thing. I supposed she was just being efficient, but it was giving me a complex to be hung up on so many times. I was not a fan.

I stared out the tinted window as we rolled the short distance from my hotel to the location of the press conference. I had been living out in the desert for a while, and it was a bit overwhelming to suddenly find myself in a major city.

As we pulled up to the conference center, I saw Emily out front, doing a shuffling high heeled run over to my limousine, to pull me out of the vehicle if necessary.

I stepped out onto the sidewalk, trying to look serious, as if I understood the gravity of our scheduling predicament. I thought that pretending to be concerned was a very thoughtful gesture.

Once again my effort to meet Emily halfway went unappreciated, as she merely shrieked, “What are you wearing?”

“Ummm, the same clothes I was wearing yesterday,” I replied sarcastically. “Somebody had all of my other clothes towed away, remember?”

“What about the new business suit I had delivered to the room for you?”

“The suit in the closet?”

“Yes, the suit in the closet,” she clarified, sounding desperate for some sort of rational explanation.

“I thought it belonged to a former guest,” I explained.

“Why would a suit from a former guest be hanging in your room? That doesn’t make sense. Housekeeping would have removed it. Why didn’t you look closer? The garment bag had your name on it.”

“Well, people don’t ordinarily buy me clothing, then fling it randomly about for me to find,” I replied defensively. “This is actually your fault for not telling me about the suit. You failed to plan ahead.”

She shook her head, staring at the slogan printed on my hooded sweatshirt.

It read, “I paused my game for this?”

I'll concede, it was a regrettable choice of attire for a sweepstakes winner to wear in front of the press while being given fifty million dollars, but as mentioned, it wasn’t my fault my entire wardrobe had been stolen.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Unbelievable,” Emily muttered softly. “Let’s go.”

And with that, she resumed her shuffling high heeled run back into the building, leading me through an atrium, up an escalator, down a hall, and into a medium sized ballroom, with heavy doors, one of which I accidentally let slam behind me.

All eyes were upon us as the loud bang seemed to really juice up the assembled crowd. There was a real buzz in the air.

The CEO had stopped mid speech, his mouth frozen in the shape of a vowel which was never to come. He glared at us, and I think I saw Emily wince.

Eventually, the CEO finished his yawner of a speech, and I was ushered forward to a small lectern in front of the media and their cameras.

Looking down at my phone, I began to speak, reading the prepared words Emily had sent me.

“Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed members of the press, and valued partners, I am honored to be here today as the lucky recipient of the Grensfeld Industries Great Worldwide Sweepstakes. This monumental opportunity has not only transformed my personal life but has also allowed me to fully appreciate the extraordinary commitment Grensfeld Industries has to innovation, progress, and, most importantly, its customers.”

My God, it was dull stuff. I wasn’t blind. I could see that the gathered members of the Fourth Estate were not going to be giving my show good reviews.

I hurriedly scrolled through the rest of the prepared statement. It was more of the same. Utter bilge.

It was time for some Terrence magic.

I looked up at the press with a big smile.

I saw Emily, in the back of the room, horror slowly creeping across her face as she recognized my intention to abandon the script. She started to rapidly shake her head ‘no.’

I couldn’t be stopped.

“Ladies, and gentlemen of the press, everything I know about Grensfeld Industries I learned by looking at their website last week, after finding out I had won their sweepstakes.”

“If you’re a normal person, you probably haven’t heard of Grensfeld Industries. And, honestly, if you’re a normal person, there really isn’t any reason why you should have heard of Grensfeld Industries.”

There was some light snickering. I was winning over the media.

“But if you aren’t normal, that is to say, if your job is to do things in the middle of nowhere, which nobody knows about, that people probably shouldn’t see, Grensfeld should be front and center in your mind. If a product is incredibly expensive and insanely heavy, they make it.”

“And the Grensfelds are such nice people,” I went on.

“For example, take Edith back there,” I proposed, gesturing in Emily’s direction. The gathered press turned to look.

“I know the Grensfelds must watch over their customer’s needs just the way Edith has so comprehensively watched over mine since we met. It’s so caring that it’s almost smothering.”

I gestured defensively. Chuckling, I said, “Hey, back off, lady!”

The press was grinning as they continued to stare at Emily, who was standing next to the CEO, who, by the way, was looking at me with murderous intent.

Emily was facepalming, clearly miserable.

I really needed to make a big save.

“Let me keep this real, for a moment. You know, this time last week, I was living alone in a camper, out of money, on public land in the desert of Utah. I can tell you, things were looking pretty bleak.”

Members of the media were suddenly looking at me with great curiosity. Human interest stuff they could use. I would give them more.

“See, this money could entirely change the trajectory of my life. I could become someone whose parents could be proud of him.”

Things were going very well.

I seemed like a happy fool. Every writer loves a happy fool story. It practically writes itself.

“But to waste such a windfall by helping only myself would be greedy,” I explained. “And I want to leave a positive mark on the world. With this money, I can do it.”

I could be wrong, but it looked like one of the photographers might have grown teary eyed. The atmosphere had grown electric. All eyes were upon me. All ears were tuned to my words. It was time to accomplish my mission.

“Let me ask you,” I spoke in a serious tone, holding a dramatic pause to keep my adoring audience in suspense.

“When was the last time that your connection to the Internet went out, and you thought, ‘Gee, I wish I still had dial-up access?’”

There was silence, but that was no bother. History had conditioned me not to expect enthusiastic initial responses from the sheeple.

“As the Grensfeld family’s ambassador to the normal world, I will use my voice to promote dial-up Internet access wherever I am called to serve. I have Edith’s word that…. ”

My microphone went dead.

“Everyone, I can’t thank you enough for coming here today to cover this joyous event,” I heard the CEO speaking into a wireless microphone as he approached the podium to take over.

So it was like that, eh? 'The Grensfeld Way' would seem to involve second mic's and sneaky silencing of speakers. It was positively Orwellian.

I was brushed aside, before joining Emily at the back of the room. She hurried me out through the doors before the media could ask any questions.

“What was that?” she demanded angrily, when we were no longer in earshot. “Stick to the script. I told you. Over and over. Stick to the script!”

She looked like she felt completely exasperated, but so did I. Did my feelings not count?

“Well then give me better material,” I demanded. “I can’t polish any old turd into a crowd pleaser through the sheer power of my charisma alone. Didn’t you see? I was bombing out there when I was reading that empty corporate-speak.”

Emily was biting her lip so hard that it hurt to look at her. I wondered what had made her so upset.

“You could always just go back to court with me, and jettison me from your life forever, you know,” I spoke temptingly.

Emily looked like a woman weighing her options.

“No,” she finally spoke, in a weary tone. “I accept responsibility for not making sure you could do something as simple as reading a prepared statement while dressed in a suit. I should have made sure you wore the right clothing, and reviewed the statement with you, many, many times. It’s just…I thought…Yale, you know? But, o.k., we can make this work.”

We stared at each other, both exhausted. Emily finally broke the silence.

“There was supposed to be a reception after this, but I’m confident Dave will want to reschedule it.”

“Who is Dave?”

“The CEO, Terrence,” she explained, sounding pained. “His name was up on the giant screen behind him the whole time he was talking. I guess you didn’t notice. His name is Dave Elmer.”

“Got it!” I reassured her. “Dave Elmer. And what about him again?”

Emily looked like she was envisioning a hopeless future.

“It doesn’t matter,” she reassured me. “He’s going to kill me. On the off chance he doesn’t, I will call you.”

“Sounds good!” I said cheerfully, and made my escape.