AN: Hey guys, thanks for reviewing and favoriting. This chapter is a little more serious than others. And there's a lot of Jim, because hey, we all love Jim. The next chapter will have way more characters, a lot more. Chapter 2 Words
And just a reminder, all my stories are a series in sequential order, starting with the Thunderstorm. I'll label my next story number five somewhere.The Break In
"I don't see why everyone is making such a big deal about this," Pam pulled her sweater closer together. She shifted uncomfortably on the conference room chair and behind her in the window the spider web crack could be seen. "I went home for the night. And I was in my room, reading the books for my upcoming painting class. I heard smashing so I locked my bedroom door and called the police. I didn't get hurt."
Her fingers curled around the end of her sweater sleeves as she looked off to the side, "But they got my laptop, which had all my animation homework on it."
"Umm," Jim scratched the back of his head; he was slouched down in the chair. It was obvious this wasn't a subject he wanted to talk about, "Pam called me after the police got there. I left my house and got to the station before her and ended up waiting the longest ten minutes of my life," he paused, his eyes dull, "We had a fight, and that's why she went home early, so it's kind of all my fault."
"Well the rest of the day has been set out for us," Michael's lower lip still pouted, but the tears were beginning to clear his eyes.
Phyllis glanced up from where she was peeling away layers of tape from her desk, "What do you mean?"
"What I mean, Phyllis, is that for the rest of the day, we're going to get this office back the way it was when we left it on Friday," Michael dragged his feet through the trash making a path, "Try to salvage anything, um, salvageable. But nothing that looks like someone went to the bathroom on it."
"Shouldn't the custodial staff be responsible for cleaning up?" Pam shook her hands free of silly string. Her desk was still three quarters covered in it.
Michael shook his head with disappointment, "When the going gets tough, that's what you do Pam? Abandon your family?"
"I think that saying goes, 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going'," Jim corrected; he had begun to collect various objects off his desk. Not knowing if they were wrecked or not, he shrugged and just threw them on the floor.
"No, you know what?" Michael followed his path back to the center of the office, "This horrible incident can work to bring us together, as a tighter knit family," he linked his hands for visual effect.
"Wasn't that what the thunderstorm was supposed to do?" Kelly looked confused.
"We have to do it ourselves anyways," Michael added, ignoring her as he ducked his head and moved back to his office, "the cleaning staff could be the culprits."
"Honestly," Jim glanced to the camera, his head still turned towards the wall, "When we arrived I thought that Michael was just having one of his 'I Had A Great Weekend' party. Which would've made it the seventh in the last month."
"Nice," Jim extended an arm and pointed to the word scratched into Dwight's desk.
Dwight tilted his head up from where he was sanitizing the only drawer to his desk he could find. When he saw what Jim was proud of, he scoffed, his rubber gloves squeaking against the spray bottle, "Vandalism isn't something to be in awe of." He turned his head back down and sprayed the bottle twice, "Besides, you got a word too."
"I know," Jim rolled his lips and looked back to the 'stoopid' etched into his desk, then colored with a permanent green marker, "but yours is so much better."
Dwight looked up again, the browning sponge still gripped tightly in his hand, gray bubbles popping out of it, "explain."
"Well," Jim leaned forward, getting a closer examination of the 'ass' engraved into Dwight's desk. It was colored over with a red marker, "For one yours is spelt correctly." It was.
Dwight watched him, trying to gauge whether Jim was serious or not. He continued, "And it's bigger than mine, so they obviously cared more. Have you see the penmanship, yours is so heavy and full of emotion. Like the planned it. Mine looks like they forgot my desk on the way out."
On his knees now, Dwight was comparing the two defacements. Nodding in agreement, he added, "I can see where mine has an artistic placement."
"You know what the best thing about it is?" Jim leaned his elbows on his desk and rested his head on his hands, "They could categorize you as so many different asses." Before Dwight could spew a defensive speech, Jim continued, "I mean you could be a dumbass or a jackass, or an asshole. How many different kinds of stoopid can I be?" He dragged out the word 'stoopid'.
Dwight grinned, flashing his teeth, and nodded in agreement.
"Jim feels inadequate after the vandal wrote stupid on this desk, or a variation of said word," Dwight still wore yellow rubber gloves that let out a squeak as they rubbed together, "Ass on the other hand, is the name of a magnificent animal of burden. I take it as a compliment."
Kevin held an armful of papers and folders. He moved precariously towards the large trash bin situated by accounting and let all the recyclables flutter out of his arms and into the bin.
"Kevin," Angela held an accusing glare, "Are you sure all of those are garbage?"
He sent a half lidded glance to her, "Yes I'm sure."
"I don't want to have to go through the garbage after I've already had to do it once," her statement was simple and she didn't give him another look as she began another pile.
Oscar stood, staring at his chair that was toppled over on its side again, "It's broken, but do I throw it out? Because what if we find the wheels?"
Pam watched Oscar's dilemma and sighed. Rolling the last ball of silly string off her hand and into the trash she could finally get start on trying to reconstruct her desk. Moving back to her desk, she found that most of her things were broken, files and papers thrown around, much like everyone else's desks. It would take some time.
"Hey," Jim greeted as he crouched into the area between her chair which was missing an arm, and her desk. "Did they write anything on your desk?"
"You mean like phone numbers or home addresses?" She turned in the chair and sent him a flashy grin.
He chuckled, "I was talking more about names and hurtful adjectives."
"Hmm," she turned her attention back to her desk, scoping the expanse of it in search of defacement and found nothing. "Nope, they just cocooned it in silly string."
"Tragic," Jim pursed his lips and shook his head, "You should not have been spared their literary excellence."
"Oh really?" she turned to face him again; "They were that good?"
"If you call spelling stupid with two 'O's good," he retorted and they both burst out into laughter.
"Modern day Hemmingways," she began to gather bits of the shredded paper lining her desk like a hamster cage.
He smiled, but remained behind her as she continued to clean off her desk, "Hey, you didn't get a phone call yet, did you?"
Pam's mouth fell open as she turned around and swatted him in the shoulder with the back of her hand, "Is that why you've been chatting me up?"
"I don't think talking about obscenities carved into our desks constitutes as 'chatting you up'," One of his hands were on the back of her chair, the other one rested at a spot cleared on her desk. He sent her a lopsided grin.
She just stared at him, her mouth pursed but still happy.
"Pam and I are expecting a very important phone call from the doctor's office today," Jim sat in the hot chair once again, although in this interview he was evidently more cheerful. "They said they would phone us with the results of her blood test today," he paused his face growing bright and beaming, "to tell us if she is pregnant. I figure you guys already knew, and since we don't want to tell anyone in the office, I have to talk to someone about it."
Still grinning vibrantly, he tried to calm himself down, "We already know if she's pregnant or not. I mean those tests, they're just protocol. Her doctor made us do them before he would schedule an ultrasound." He stopped talking, but didn't stop smiling.
Coming up - We get a visit from Darryl and find out the warehouse is in worse shape than the office.
