Tribble Fan Fiction #17: The Office — Threat Level Tribble
Tribble Fan Fiction #17
Cold Open
[Camera focuses on the Dunder Mifflin Scranton reception desk. Pam is answering phones. A small pink tribble is sitting next to her stapler.]
PAM [talking head]: Michael bought a tribble from a guy at the gas station. He said it was “the world’s best desk pet” and that it would “revolutionize office morale.” It’s been three days. There are now fourteen tribbles. [pause] I’m not going to be the one to tell him.
[Cut to Michael’s office. Michael is holding a pastel purple tribble up to the camera with both hands, grinning.]
MICHAEL: This! Is a tribble! And it is — and I cannot stress this enough — the greatest thing that has ever happened to this office. Greater than the Dundies. Greater than Pretzel Day. Greater than the time I hit Meredith with my car and she got a free rabies shot.
CAMERAMAN [off-screen]: Michael, is it multiplying?
MICHAEL: What? No. That’s — [looks at desk, where three new tribbles have appeared] — those were there before.
Act One
DWIGHT [talking head, arms crossed]: The tribble is an invasive species. I identified it immediately. Polygeminus grex. Reproduces every twelve hours. Eats grain. Potential threat to the agricultural output of Schrute Farms. I have recommended immediate containment and, if necessary, controlled elimination. Michael told me to “chill.” I do not “chill.” I am a beet farmer and an Assistant Regional Manager. I respond to threats.
[Cut to the office. Jim has placed a tribble on Dwight’s desk. Dwight is staring at it with the focused intensity of a man defusing a bomb.]
DWIGHT: Jim.
JIM: Yeah?
DWIGHT: Why is there a tribble on my desk?
JIM: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
DWIGHT: It is sitting on my stapler.
JIM: Dwight, that’s always been there.
DWIGHT: It has NOT always been—
JIM: Are you feeling okay? Do you need me to call someone?
[Dwight looks at the camera. The tribble purrs. Jim smiles.]
JIM [talking head]: I’ve been putting tribbles in increasingly unlikely places on Dwight’s desk. His pencil cup. His briefcase. Inside his telephone handset. He found seven yesterday. Today the goal is twelve. [holds up a tribble] They’re actually really helpful for pranks. They’re small, they don’t make noise until you pick them up, and they eat evidence.
“I am not afraid of tribbles. I am a volunteer sheriff’s deputy. I have handled far more dangerous livestock. But I do not enjoy the purring. The purring is psychological warfare.” — Dwight K. Schrute
Act Two
ANGELA [talking head, holding a tribble at arm’s length]: It’s disgusting. It sheds. It doesn’t use a litter box. It eats everything, including the organic cat food I keep in my desk for Sprinkles. [pause] It’s also incredibly soft. [longer pause] I’m not keeping it.
[Cut to Angela’s desk thirty minutes later. Angela has three tribbles in a small basket lined with a monogrammed napkin.]
KEVIN: I like the tribbles because they’re round, and I’m round, and we understand each other. [holds tribble next to his face] See? Same energy.
OSCAR [talking head]: The tribble population in this office has reached forty-seven. I’ve done the math. At the current reproduction rate, we will have over a thousand by Friday. I brought this up in a meeting. Michael said, and I quote, “Oscar, you can’t put a number on love.” I can. The number is forty-seven and climbing.
[Conference room. Michael stands at the whiteboard, which reads “TRIBBLE PLAN” in green marker. The entire office is seated around the table. Multiple tribbles are visible on the table, on chairs, and in Stanley’s mug.]
MICHAEL: Okay, so. We have a situation. And I want to be clear — this is not a problem. This is a situation. Problems are negative. Situations are opportunities.
STANLEY: There’s one in my coffee.
MICHAEL: That is an opportunity for you to try a new beverage, Stanley.
STANLEY: It’s an opportunity for me to go home.
MICHAEL: No one is going home! We are going to solve this situation as a team. Now. Who has ideas?
DWIGHT: Controlled burn.
MICHAEL: No.
DWIGHT: Selective culling.
MICHAEL: No!
DWIGHT: Release of a natural predator. I have a hawk.
MICHAEL: Dwight, you are not releasing a hawk in this office!
DWIGHT: You never let me use the hawk.
JIM: You have a hawk?
DWIGHT: I have several hawks.
TOBY: Michael, from an HR perspective, we should probably contact animal control—
MICHAEL: Toby, nobody asked you. Nobody ever asks you. If I wanted the opinion of a tribble, I would hold one up to the microphone, and it would still be more interesting than you.
[Toby looks at the camera. A tribble purrs sympathetically from his lap.]
Act Three
[The warehouse. Darryl is leaning against a forklift. Tribbles are everywhere — on boxes, on pallets, rolling across the warehouse floor.]
DARRYL [talking head]: I’ve been working in this warehouse for nine years. I’ve seen Michael drive a car into the building. I’ve seen Dwight set a fire to teach people about fire safety. I’ve seen Kevin drop a pot of chili and try to scoop it back in with file folders. But tribbles? [long pause] Tribbles are new.
[Cut to Michael’s office. Michael is sitting behind his desk, surrounded by tribbles. He is cradling the original purple tribble in his arms like a baby.]
MICHAEL: People think being a boss is about making tough decisions. And it is. It absolutely is. But it’s also about knowing when something good has happened, even if it looks like a disaster. These tribbles? They make people happy. Kevin smiled today. Stanley smiled today. Even Angela — Angela, who has never smiled at a living thing that wasn’t a cat — I saw her pet a tribble when she thought no one was looking.
[Michael looks at the tribble in his hands.]
MICHAEL: This office — these people — we spend forty hours a week in this room selling paper. Paper. And most days, that’s fine. Most days, that’s enough. But sometimes you need something that purrs. Something that doesn’t have goals or deadlines or quarterly targets. Something that just sits there and says, “Hey. You’re warm. That’s enough.”
[Long pause. Michael wipes his eye.]
MICHAEL: That’s what she said.
Tag
[End of day. The office is quiet. Jim and Pam are the last ones there. Tribbles are sleeping on desks, in drawers, on the photocopier. The original purple tribble is on the reception desk.]
JIM: So Dwight called animal control.
PAM: I know.
JIM: They’re coming tomorrow.
PAM: I know. [picks up the purple tribble] Can we keep this one?
JIM: Michael will notice.
PAM: Michael will buy another one from the same gas station guy within a week.
JIM: [smiles] Yeah. He will.
[They walk out together. Pam puts the tribble in her purse. It purrs. Jim turns off the lights. The camera lingers on the empty office, where a single tribble — overlooked, forgotten, small and warm — purrs from inside Dwight’s briefcase.]
[CREDITS]
Animal control removed sixty-three tribbles from the Dunder Mifflin Scranton branch the following morning. Dwight supervised the operation with unnecessary intensity. Michael cried. Jim hid two tribbles in Dwight’s car before the extraction team arrived. Pam kept the original and named it “Reception.” Angela kept three, which she housed in a custom-built enclosure next to Sprinkles’ memorial shrine. And Kevin — who never told anyone — kept one in his desk drawer for the rest of the series, feeding it M&Ms and calling it “Round Kevin.”
