Jim Halpert does not believe in love at first sight.

So when the shy, quiet woman in the light pink blouse and gray skirt entered Poor Richards and jumped forward a bit when the wind whipped the door shut behind her, causing a loud smack that got Jim’s attention, it wasn’t his heart beating out of his chest that knocked his beer bottle out of his hand.

Nope, it wasn’t love. Sweaty palms, maybe. But not love.

The beer in question slipped from his hand; falling to the ground in slow-motion, like one of those commercials where the waitress bumps the beer off the table and everyone looks on in horror as it crashes to the ground.  A tragedy in the truest sense.

But the real tragedy of this evening was not the loss of alcohol.

No, for Mr. Halpert, the real tragedy was the stark realization that the new receptionist had a hold of him; a grip that seemed to grab and let go as frequently as her radiant smile lit up her face. And since he had quickly discovered that making her smile was something he enjoyed doing very much, he figured he was content with her never letting go.

So, wasted beer be damned, he thought; there were plenty more where that one came from.

Jim’s roommate, Mark, looked down with a bemused look on his face as Jim began picking up the larger shards of glass from the puddle of suds forming at his feet. He watched as Jim carefully maneuvered through the liquid so as not to cut himself. But if he asked Jim to be honest with him (and he would have, because he’s Jim Halpert) he would have told Mark that had he sliced his finger clean off, he would not have noticed until he woke up in a hospital to a doctor explaining to him that he’s missing the tip of his index finger. Because at that very moment, when most of the people watching him clean up his mess think he’s just being nice -- I mean, it’s Jim Halpert -- he is crouched on the ground, trying to process the simple fact that the one person he wanted to see, more than any other out of the other six billion on this earth, had just walked through the door.

This one, he thinks, who might be the one mothers tell their sons about.

This one.

Pam Beesley.