Things could hardly get worse

I knew what kind of a day it was going to be when my car broke down at Northpark Mall and I had to walk all the way to the 15th Street Wal-Mart where the Joplin Chamber of Commerce was holding its annual Man of the Year presentation.
I checked my watch and found out I still had plenty of time to get there before the ceremony started, so I immediately began walking, leaving my car behind. As though of you who read my report on this year's Chamber of Commerce annual banquet know, I am not comfortable in this kind of gathering. I have always had extreme claustrophobia, so putting me into a banquet room at Wal-Mart with hundreds of people (some with shopping carts) was not my idea of a good time.
When I finally arrived, I breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that the banquet had not yet started. I saw Carthage Press Managing Editor Ron Graber, armed with his trusty camera, waving at me, so I waved back. I headed over to talk to him, but a lady tapped me on the shoulder and said I needed to get to the interview room since I was the last man of the year candidate to be interviewed.
As I headed that way, suddenly a microphone, attached to the outstretched arm of KSN's Gary Bandy, was stuck in my face. "And now," he said, in that silky, smooth voice that four-state viewers have come to love (and they have to be four-state viewers since the adjective four-state is attached to everything on KSN's newscasts), "And we have with us a candidate for man of the year, the diminutive Daniel Turner."
Normally, I would have disputed the use of the term "diminutive" (especially since Gary Bandy is one of the few people who is actually shorter than I am), but I was too stunned to say anything, except "My name's Randy."
I don't remember anything about the two or three questions he asked me, except I was happy when he moved on to his next victim. I heard a couple several feet away from me talking about the unfortunate experience I had just gone through. The woman said to the man, "That was ambush journalism. I just hate that."
The man nodded. "That Gary Bandy. He thinks he's Mike Wallace."
I didn't have a chance to feel bad about the ambush interview. I heard a woman's voice calling my name, "Randy, Randy, we need you over here."
When I got over there, she said it was time for my interview for man of the year and pointed me toward the man who would be conducting the interview. As I approached him, he stood and extended his hand. "Mister Turner," he said, smiling, but suddenly the smile vanished. "The Chamber of Commerce is an important organization, Mister Turner."
"I know it is," I stammered, not knowing exactly where this was going.
"Then why didn't you wear a tie to the banquet?'
"I was going to buy one here at Wal-Mart," I explained, hoping the answer would satisfy him, but apparently, it didn't.
"You should have worn a tie," he grumbled, then looking me over, he added, "and some pants would have been nice."
It was at that point that I woke up, so I will never know if I was the Joplin Chamber of Commerce's man of the year.