Disclaimer: The Office is not owned by me.

...obviously.

Five Musicians Dunder-Mifflin Employees Have Discussed

#1.

"Prince?" Jim asks incredulously as he pops open his can of soda.

Pam can feel herself blushing slightly, leaning against the machine. "Is there something wrong with Prince?"

"Nothing, it's just that…I guess I couldn't see you having Prince as the most-played artist on your iPod. Do you have all of his songs?"

"Well," this time Pam is sure she is positively flushed, "yes. Do you have a problem with that, music snob?" She bops her head from side to side in an unconvincingly intimidating way.

The corners of his mouth twitch gleefully. "I am not a music snob."

"Oh, really? What about that argument with Katy over Nickelback?"

And suddenly, things are weird again: Pam finally notices Karen gazing at the snack room from her desk and snapping her head back to attention when she becomes aware that she's being watched, too. The conversation itself is swiftly brought to a halt, infringing that unspoken territory of, well…things they were typically too afraid to discuss.

"I think I hear the phone ringing," Pam mumbles to her feet.

As she leaves, Jim says softly, "Yeah." He tosses his can into the recycling bin and liberates a breath he did not realize he was holding.

#2.

Oscar leans forward in his chair, his fingers tapping his chin in thought.

"Um…well, sometimes Kevin has his headphones on, but I can still hear Def Leppard's 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' blaring. And, you know, it's Kevin, so he'll catch my eye and nod. Then he'll turn his monitor toward me, and there will be a picture of Tawny Kietan on it, and he'll grin." Oscar visibly shudders. "Afterwards, it's like he remembers or something—he'll stop smiling and say, 'Oh,' in that slow, Kevin sort of way."

He takes a deep breath and looks directly at the camera.

"Worse than that—can you even imagine?—is sometimes Angela will play some 'Christian jazz' on a radio. Once I asked her how instrumental jazz could be considered Christian, and she said, 'Because sinners aren't peddling it for drug money.'"

Oscar pauses, pressing his lips together and raising his eyebrows. "I sometimes imagine the babies in her poster playing that same jazz, and then I wonder what it would have been like to stay on that cruise in Europe."

#3.

"Ryan, did you like my anniversary present?" Kelly coos, squeezing his arm painfully.

Rather than answering, Ryan opts to strategically angle the nameplate that reads "RYAN HOWARD, KELLY'S SWEETIE" at the camera. If one were to glimpse at his expression without context, they would probably assume that he had recovered from war.

Except Ryan would consider the nameplate a much worse fate. Hypothetically.

Kelly, on the other hand, tries a different approach. "Ryan, you have to listen to this song on my iPod, it is so romantic—"

"Please tell me it's not James Blunt."

Kelly is oddly quiet, and a look of utmost sadness washes across her face. Ryan feels a rare emotion of guilt. He rolls his eyes, but compensates by putting his arm around her shoulder. She starts to beam at him when someone abruptly bursts through the door.

"Did someone mention James Blunt?" Michael asks.

Ryan starts to shake his head fervently as Kelly exclaims, "Yes! Aren't his songs, like, totally awesome?" She looks pointedly at Ryan, who in turn looks pointedly at the floor.

"Pfft! What, are you going to cry to it?" He looks at the camera in a suspiciously self-conscious manner. "Maybe if you're a pussy," Michael spies the camera, "…cat. Pussycat." He crosses the room and attempts to sit on Ryan's lap. "Mrrow!"

"Michael, stop!" Kelly interjects. Michael is still widely grinning as he stands up.

"Goodbye my lovaah, goodbye my friiiend!"

It is at that moment—Kelly defending him in a jealous frenzy, Michael abusing the use of falsetto—that Ryan decides James Blunt is one of those things that simply should not exist.

#4.

"Were you in a folk band in the 60's?" Creed inquires.

Meredith takes a sip of her 'water.' "I was born in 1959."

"Hmm. Something about you reminded me of the sweet smell of horseradish."

There is a palpable silence as Meredith slurps loudly from her bottle. She can hear Creed whisper, "Oh, Janis," as he walks away.

#5.

Dwight is staring fixedly at the copier. "Mose would really like to meet you. He confided that he crafted a special song that he'd like to play at dinner Sunday night."

Angela is also concentrating intently on watering a nearby plant. "What kind of music does he play?"

"He seems to favor the bagpipes, though he sometimes experiments with the recorder. I was the one who taught him how to play that."

"Really?" Angela dares to peek at him for a second. Literally. She calculates it silently.

"Ah, yes…Mose and I used to have a pop group; we'd try to recreate the music from Lord of the Rings." Dwight pauses, nodding to himself at the memory. "Oh, yes, 'Concerning Hobbits' was a particularly difficult one. Sometimes we still jam, but usually we try to play the score from Heroes. It's very moving."

"Musical talent is a gift." She breaks off the dead end of the leaf and buries it in the soil.

"So," Dwight dares to gaze up from the unassuming machine, "will you be there?"

Angela simply smiles, for exactly half of a second, and promptly walks in the opposite direction.