MEN'S HEALTH IS A GREAT MAGAZINE, RIGHT?

I think Pam, the receptionist likes me. She's playful. Whenever I come over to the reception area, Pam moves the jar of M&M's. Out of my reach. The sign in front of the jar says "Help yourself" but she moves the jar when I come up, it's kind of a game.

She even jokes about it, but is always careful not to smile. "Kevin, you can't eat my candy if you're going to scratch yourself." She knows I'm not scratching myself! I just reach into my pants to re-adjust my boxers. But "Men's Health" says that girls like to banter, and I'm getting pretty good at it.

Not that I am trying to get with Pam. I have a fiancée, Stacy. She's out of town for a couple of weeks, she and my best friend, Lawrence, who's also the bass player in our band, "Scrantonicity" went on a wine-tasting tour.

They told me to stay home and watch Stacy's daughter, McKenzie, because wine gives me gas. But they call me from the Vermont hotels every night. When Lawrence and Stacy call me, McKenzie always rolls her eyes. She's a smart-ass, but very cute.

We had a meeting about snacking at our desks, and Michael said we can have snacks, but not a full-course meal, and I asked what constitutes a full-course meal at my desk, and now I can't have more than a candy bar there.

I think Michael likes Pam a little bit. It's a little quiet between them, because she cut up his Whoopie cushion, but I know Michael was just kidding around with her.

Michael asked me what I thought he should do to get Pam a little interested in him. He was thinking of putting chocolate pudding in her handbag, but that's how he got Jillian, his personal assistant to quit, as I remember. Toby keeps sending Pam these weird poems, anonymously...and then I think Pam and Jim make fun of them.

Jim is the new salesman. He's a great guy, we talk about the Phillies a lot. Pam and Kelly are so friendly to him, and so is Phyllis. It must be a new guy thing...though when I came to work here, no one said anything to me, except nasty stuff like "If you can't add or subtract, how are you an accountant?"

I was actually going to work in the warehouse. Mom had agreed to quit smoking if I got a job and moved out of the house...thirty-seven is the age to leave the nest, she said.

I did have a part time job at Men's Wearhouse, and that's how Michael met me...and he once auditioned to do a male-yet-female-Stevie-Nicks singing thing with-it's too complicated, but when I needed a job, you know, so I could move out, I went to where he has dinner on Thursday nights, Chuck E. Cheese (Michael loves dancing with the big rat) and asked his advice. He told me to come right in!

So I interviewed with Michael, but he had just had a fight with Angela, in accounting, and he said he was going to get even. I was a little afraid, though the salary to work in the warehouse is about seventeen, and up here is forty-plus.

The work isn't bad but people keep stealing my snacks from the desk, and leaving weird stuff, like deodorant, and celery. I'm not sure what they want me to do with their uh, discarded stuff.

I feel great about being an accountant. 'Cause I failed second, fifth and ninth grades, Mom always thought I might not realize my potential, but now I have made the family really proud-a real accountant and also drummer in a Police cover band.

Oscar and Angela mostly have me work with labels and stuff, they don't like me to do the bookkeeping-and-numbers side of accounting. I guess I'm a specialist.