Pam is not popular during high school – although neither would she say she is unpopular. She watches the standard 15 year old girl movies – the Heathers, the Carries, the Roxy Carmichaels, and she doesn’t connect with the girl existing on the fringes. She is there, in the yearbook and at dances, but she doesn’t force her presence on any one group, and she isn’t really involved with anything but a set of pencils.
Which is why, when she looks at a pair of cleats – attached to ROY ANDERSON – as they approach where she sits against her locker, she can’t help but feel like maybe this intrusion is unwelcome.

Pam is not unpopular at the office. Sure, she thinks that Dwight is so strange and that Phyllis has a little bit too much bite to her sometimes and, Jesus, if she has to listen to Angela subtly refer to her as a whore one more time she will scream, but she has friends. Toby is sweet. Oscar is nice. Jim – well, Jim is her salvation. In the office. In the warehouse (not that she has much cause to go down there), there is still, always, Roy, who has traded his cleats in for a sturdy pair of work boots. And Pam, Pam has traded slip on mary janes (in jewel-shiny colors like purplicious and magenta) for a sparkling pair of Keds. They sparkle a little whiter than the diamond (chip, if she is honest with herself) that doesn’t even faintly glow on her finger, not now, almost three years out from her engagement. By now, she should have two rings on her finger, and polishing the white gold band of her engagement ring doesn’t make her very happy, so she stain proofs and hand washes her Keds at the end of every work week, until its (almost) a running joke in the office, how neat Pam keeps her shoes. Almost a running joke – unlike the other joke, the one that has run out of hand.

Pam in unpopular at the office. She knows everyone thinks she is some silly receptionist with no talent and so they don’t show up at her art show, and Ryan thinks she is insane, certifiably, the way she stared at him before Jim came back. (came back with Karen, who she so wants to like). Now, all she sees of Jim is from the back of the neck up (is he combing his hair more? Using more product?) and peeks of what exists of his long legs from the knees down, below the seat of his chair. Pam tries not to stare, but she looks at the backs of his brown loafers, thinks about how she doesn’t think he shines them regularly, how they get a little scuffed and well-worn around the heels. Lovely, like a leather sofa that you can just sink into – much unlike her little Swedish couch, so small she can’t even lie down fully, and her thoughts travel without caution towards the idea of squeezing on to the couch with someone. For a second her eyes well up – isn’t allergy season over?- as she imagines a pair of work trousers, creased from a day’s work, curled around her pencil skirt as she and her fantasy man (who does not seem to comb his hair very much) kick off their shoes and try squeeze on the sofa – a pair of sensible pumps and loafers, next to each other by her door.

Pam is popular at the office – at least with the one person who matters. Silently, each morning as she gets dressed, she thanks Kelly for dragging her to the mall and assorted shops to “update your wardrobe because that will get you out of your funk, Pam!”, although that bleak period seems a million years ago. Now, as her life finally seems to be making sense, Pam finds that she does enjoy the painstaking process of curling her hair, or wearing it a chic ponytail, or a little pinned back, anything besides that stupid barrette. Pam is also very thankful for her standard work heels, each a little daring (patterned, colored, bejeweled) – especially the first pair she had worn when Jim and she had gotten dressed for work together. Black, simple heels – but when she sat on her bed and slipped them on as Jim walked back into the room with cups of coffee, those heels were worth every penny for the look on face; even worth the $4.99 in carpet stain remover she had to buy to remove the coffee stains where Jim and dropped the cups, even worth the stares as they both ran in late that day

Pam is especially popular at home. Her little baby is toddling around, drunk with the power of two legs. Of course, Jim is some kind of giant freak, and it's Pam's job to hold two little hands high above a little head and provide some extra balance. This is made only more amusing by the sound of the shoes her baby wears - a steady squeak squeak squeak as tiny feet and heels hit the ground. Squeak squeak squeak - like the beat of Jim's heart under her ear, she couldn't imagine life without that sound.