After the whole Dwight-cutting-benefits debacle Jim found himself thinking about the future. Not the future if he ever got spontaneous dental hydroplosion, but the future if he had taken over the health care planning, if he had let this “job” become a “career”—or, alternatively, the future where he dropped everything and became a yak farmer in Outer Mongolia, or a botanist in the Amazon jungle, or…really, anything else.
He realized there was only one thing that truly tied him to Scranton, and to Dunder Mifflin: Pam. She was everything he wanted in a partner. It was like his crush on Morgan had grown a body and walked out of the computer screen into his real life, only to cruelly and ironically be engaged to someone else. Morgan, at least, had the virtue of being, well, virtual. Oh, he was sure there was a real woman somewhere out there with her amazing sense of humor, her artistic skill, her adorable knowledge of minor trivia, and her incredible ability to make things feel right after a totally awful day. Hell, he was sure there were two of them. But Pam was engaged and Morgan was who-knew-where (not him, for sure), and so he clung to Morgan’s virtual presence. After all, even if he did leave for Outer Mongolia, he was pretty sure he could manage to have internet access. And that meant he might have to leave Pam, but he’d never have to leave Morgan. Assuming she didn’t leave him.
It was funny, he thought, that he’d managed to form two deep friendships with women in his life and neither of them was ever remotely available to him. Maybe it was a symptom of something, or one of those moral illustrations like in Aesop’s Fables: the Salesman and the Siren or (if he was optimistic) Paper and Perseverance. After all, third time’s the charm.
Not that he expected lightning to strike thrice. Twice was already too lucky for one man, even if he’d never get to kiss Pam or even meet Morgan. People like that didn’t come around that often, and when you did you held them tight and didn’t let them go.
And that’s why he wouldn’t move to Outer Mongolia or the Amazon. Why he wouldn’t even leave Dunder Mifflin. Because while it hurt to watch Pam and Roy together at the end of the day, or to remember that her health care was their health care, and it sucked to never have a chance to even see Morgan (he had taped a printout of one of her pictures that she’d sent a photo of to the wall by his desk at home so he could have something to look at when they chatted), he couldn’t give either of them up.
So instead he watched trashy TV and moped. Even the TV mocked him: “Trading Spouses” was a little on the nose given his thoughts about Pam and Roy, “ditto “The Bachelor,” and “The Apprentice” hit too close to home in relation to his recent speculations about his career goals, or lack thereof. He clicked off the TV and turned his attention to his laptop.
WScranton8: please tell me there’s a good game tonight or something
WScranton8: because my TV has abandoned me
MorganLaFey: it grew legs and walked out?
MorganLaFey: you should really get that checked
MorganLaFey: is your house on the site of an ancient burial ground?
MorganLaFey: have you offended any particular deities recently?
WScranton8: only a few
MorganLaFey: which ones?
WScranton8: um, I didn’t catch his name, but I’m pretty sure the guy I knocked down in the parking lot on the way to work today was a Norse god…Logi? Lowkey? Something like that.
WScranton8: and my grocery bagger yesterday was a dead ringer for Anubis, god of the dead, and I gave him a really hard time about where he put the eggs and bread in the bag
WScranton8: oh yeah, and my landlord’s some kind of wood dryad and I’m behind on my rent
MorganLaFey: hmm…it could be any of them
MorganLaFey: I’d bet on Loki though, he’s a trickster god
MorganLaFey: didn’t know you worked with him
WScranton8: no, he works in another part of the complex I think
WScranton8: maybe with the HVAC guys in our building
MorganLaFey: makes sense, he was a fire spirit originally
WScranton8: exactly
MorganLaFey: but really, it could be any of them
MorganLaFey: I think you’re going to have to go around and make amends
MorganLaFey: or hope that the TV gets lonely and comes home
WScranton8: I should leave out a trail of breadcrumbs, or something
MorganLaFey: what does a TV eat…
WScranton8: brain cells?
MorganLaFey: yeah but those are really messy
MorganLaFey: your wood dryad landlord’s gonna object if you leave those out
WScranton8: true
WScranton8: maybe the batteries from my remote?
MorganLaFey: perfect! It’s not like you’ll need those without the TV anyway
WScranton8: true
WScranton8: maybe I can put up little “MISSING” signs around the neighborhood
WScranton8: like people do for their pets
MorganLaFey: lol
MorganLaFey: your TV is definitely your favorite pet
MorganLaFey: do you have any pictures of it you could post?
WScranton8: no :-(
MorganLaFey: that’s OK, I’ll just draw you one
MorganLaFey: I can email it over tonight
WScranton8: thanks :-)
MorganLaFey: my pleasure
MorganLaFey: after all, I have to put those art supplies I bought last week to some use, right?
WScranton8: definitely
