Life In The Office

“Prince Family Paper” starts off with Jim pranking Dwight. Always a good place to start! Dwight finds a mysterious wire coming out of the back of his computer. Ever curious, Dwight begins to follow the wire. We see him get up out of his chair, trace it through the office, down the hall, etc…In a talking-head, Jim explains that he bought 500ft. of red wire at the local flea market for $20.00. As he’s explaining this, we can see Dwight climbing a telephone pole outside the window in the background. The camera’s focus in on Dwight as he scales the pole, still chasing the source of the wire. Jim’s response? “Oh, he’ll be fine. I made it up there.” lol

In the first of two plot lines that make up this episode, Michael takes a call from CEO David Wallace. Seems the Regional Supervisor position is still open. David asks Michael to do some of the Reg. Supervisor’s work, supposidly to see if he’d fit the bill for the job opening? Anyway, the “work” is to get dirt on some of the competition. Specifically locally owned paper company, “Prince Family Paper”.

In the second plot line of the show, the staff at the office weighs in on whether actress Hillary Swank is “hot or “not”. It’s starts off as most of these type things do, as an innocent conversation between Phyllis and Stanley. Then, everyone starts weighing in and when they realize they don’t all share the same view on the subject, the debates begin!

In the “hot” camp: Jim, Pam, Kelly, Creed, Stanley. In the “not” camp: Kevin, Andy, Oscar, Phyllis, Meredith. It’s five for and five against. And so the debates begin….:)

Back to Michael’s “job”. He enlists Dwight to come spy with him. They’re both very excited. Michael picks his alais, Michael Scarn (I’m sure you all remember, Agent Michael Scarn from his screen play, right? lol). They both plan out how they’re going to get the information they need. Michael will pretend to be a local businessman who is thinking of doing business with Prince Family Paper Company and therefore has lots of questions. Dwight will play the job-seeker, who will ask alot of questions about the type of business they do, etc…They even come up with a signal for when they’re ready to leave. Dwight suggests they lick their lips. Michael does, but Dwight isn’t happy with his pantomime. According to Dwight, they need to lick them suggestively. They do, and the result is both hysterical and disgusting!

Giddy from their planning, Dwight and Michael make their way into the company. They liken themselves to “sharks” in the business world. Michael has a blast humming the famous opening bars to “Jaws” over and over again. And over and over again! Leave it to Michael to beat it to death (twss).

Once inside, Michael sets up his lie. He meets the owner and workers in the company. Mr. and Mrs. Prince and their son. Even their little granddaughter is hanging around the office doing her homework. Aww!! Michael tells them he is a lawyer working in a local firm and they are interested in making Prince Family Paper their paper company.

Mr. Prince is very nice. Actually, the whole family is ridiculously sweet and nice. Michael starts his questioning, “how long have you been in business?” Mr. Prince replies, “I started the business when I got back from Vietnam”. Michael’s response? “Ooh Vietname! I hear it’s lovely.” ha ha! Way to break the ice there, Michael Scarn!

Back at the office, the Hillary Swank debate is still raging. Kevin, who is very vocal about his position, says, “Hot is different from beautiful. A painting is beautiful, but I don’t want to bang a painting.”

Jim then presents his argument for “hot”. In a sexy little soothing whisper, he tells Kevin, “suppose Hillary Swank read your online profile and contacts you. She tells you that she likes you and wants to make-out with you. Now, is she hot?”

Swayed by Jim’s persuasiveness, Kevin slowly walks over to the “hot” side. Then, two seconds later, he’s back to the “not” side. Why? Kevin explains, “the question is: Is she hot? Not: Would you do her? Respect the game, Jim!” lol

Now it’s Kevin’s turn to present his argument. He points to her movie role, “Boys Don’t Cry” where she was pretending to be a boy. He says that some part of him still believed that she might have had a penis. Some argument, right?

Those comments from Kevin get ice-queen Angela to weigh in. Of course, she didn’t want to participate in such a thing from the beginning, but after hearing Kevin’s debate, she feels the need to participate. She tells everyone, “I don’t see what this is all about, hot is a temperature people.” lol She decides to vote “hot” just to disagree with Kevin.

Back at Prince Family Paper, Dwight comes in to the office. He is playing the arrogant prospective employee. Not too far from his real persona, huh? Even though Prince Family Paper is a small company that has no room for new hires, the kind family still entertains Dwight’s questions.

Michael, still “interviewing” the family as a prospective paper company decides to interact a bit with the family. He takes Mrs. Prince’s picture and chats it up with the granddaughter. He even tries to help the child with her homework. But after listening to how he “helps” her, it is clear that he is completely wrong. Mrs. Prince doesn’t make him lose face by pointing out his mistaken answer, but when he granddaughter starts to write down the answer Michael has given her, she quietly tells her, “no, don’t put that down”. lol

Kindly finishing up with the “prospective client” and “prospective employee”, Mr. Prince tells Dwight that he’s look over his resume and let him know. He also gives Michael a list of his clients, so that he can check them for references. Bingo!! Now Michael has the Prince client list. Won’t CEO David Wallace be proud of his little spy? That Regional Supervisor position is looking pretty sewn up right now…

Licking their lips, the two spies head out of the office, client list firmly in hand. Once in their car, they try to speed off. But slick Michael runs over the divider. Uh -oh!

And who comes to their rescue? You guessed it, the kindly Prince family. The same family that they were sent to spy on and that they weaseled the client list from. Mr. Prince runs back to get his tool box to fix it. Mrs. Prince brings them both hot coffee while her husband fixes the car. You can see in Michael’s face that their goodness is starting to make him feel like a real jerk for spying on them. Not Dwight though! He groans to Mrs. Prince, “Ugh! Is this instant?” lol Their car is now fixed by the kindly Prince family. So, they head back to the office. Dwight is thrilled, Michael looks as if he has the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Back at the office, it’s Stanley’s turn to present his case. He tells everyone, “at my age, I probably only have 20-30 years left. And, my family health history tells me I have less. The old Stanley would have found fault with this actress, but the not the new Stanley.” lol Stanley is firmly in the “hot” camp.

Michael and Dwight come back into the office and head right into Michael’s office. Michael has decided not to give the list to David Wallace. Dwight does his best to convince him to give it to him. Michael is soo guilty. He says it makes his heart feel terrible. Dwight points out that Michael’s heart is not always the best judge of character. Michael responds, “You’re right. It has gone down the wrong path so many times…Jan, Ryan”. lol Ryan? Oh my! We all know Michael has a man-crush on Ryan, but it still cracks me up to here him vocalize it!

Michael pretends he’s been swayed by Dwight’s argument, but he hasn’t. He then runs out of the office with the list with Dwight chasing after him. After much goofy chasing, Dwight winds up with the list. They call David Wallace. Michael is the hero, but he feels terrible. In a talking-head he tells us, “it was a real bittersweet moment. Bitter because I slightly destroyed a wonderful little family. Sweet because David Wallace thought I did a good job.” kinda sad actually…Guess we’ll have to see how this all pans out for Michael and the open Regional Supervisor position…

Michael then comes out of his office. He sees the Hillary Swank pictures all over the wall and asks, “Oh, hey, what’s this?” The staff responds, “Hillary Swank”. Michael then says, “Oh, she’s hot” and goes back into his office. Everyone is quiet for a second and then the “hot” camp erupts into cheers. The debate is won! lol

What did you think of “Prince Family Paper”? I liked it. It set up a nice scenario for Michael and was simple fun in the office for the rest of the staff. After last weeks Dwight/Angela/Andy angst, it was a breath of fresh air in the office, I thought. Weigh in with your thoughts. Do you agree with me, or think I’m way off base? Let me know! ~Donna