Michael has all the guys gathered in the conference room, telling them that they're all going to get rich selling calling cards. Everyone is doubtful for various reasons, and Michael gets kind of irritated with everyone's attitude. Especially Toby's, at whom he snaps, "When the son of the deposed King of Nigeria e-mails you directly asking for help, you help!" Jim asks how this isn't a pyramid scheme. On a fresh flip-chart page, Michael draws a diagram indicating how he and another guy were recruited by "Phil," and now Michael is recruiting people, and so on. While he's yammering, Jim wordlessly gets up, takes the marker, and draws a triangle around Michael's diagram. Almost a pyramid shape, you might say. This takes a moment to sink in. "I have to make a call," Michael finally says, leaving.
Michael enters the office dressed in a flashy pinstripe suit with a cobalt-blue shirt and headache-inducing tie. Why is he dressed like a record-company executive? Well, it's his birthday. He claims that everyone in the office goes crazy (all evidence to the contrary), and mentions that he has the same birthday as Eva Longoria. which will be a perfect icebreaker if she ever meets Teri Hatcher. And then Teri Hatcher can say, "Hey, my character is a pathetic, desperate, needy, socially awkward misfit, too," and Michael will say, "Too?" and then there's that ice again. By the way, my birthday? Same as Cary Grant's. I'm just saying.
Kevin arrives late, and Michael makes a big show of forgiving him, overflowing with birthday-boy magnanimity. Note also that Kevin is wearing a zip-collar sweatshirt over his shirt and tie as opposed to his usual suit jacket. It's still brown-grey, though, so it's not too jarring. Jim THs that Michael's birthday is kind of an event; Michael eats too much cake, runs around, has a sugar crash, and falls asleep. "And that's when we get our work done."
Kevin sits in the break room, alone with a soda. Meredith comes in and asks if he's heard anything. He hasn't. Hmmm.
Dwight comes into Michael's office, wishes him happy birthday, compliments his suit, and asks to be in charge of planning the festivities. Michael says the party planning committee has it covered. Dwight starts to say something about how he's reserved something or other, but Michael cuts him off to save the surprise. And then they "raise the roof" together, badly enough that...well, let's just say it's a good thing the roof is already up there.
Dwight bursts into the party planning committee's meeting to instruct them to get trick candles and give them a list of surprises Michael wants. Which as it turns out, includes a stripper-gram. Angela kicks Dwight out of the meeting. Pam looks amazed that that actually worked. Oh, do keep up, Pam.
For some reason, Michael has Ryan in his office as he calls up Jan to finagle a birthday greeting out of her. After dutifully sighing happy birthday over the speaker phone, Jan asks if she's on camera. Michael assures her that she isn't, and thus can say whatever's in her heart. Which turns out to be [beat][click]. Well said, Jan. "You can take a five," Michael tells Ryan.
Michael opens a big box of donuts in the break room, and stands there to it with his hand on the coffee carafe, just waiting to pick it up when someone walks in. Stanley comes in and takes one, mumbling "happy birthday" at Michael, who claims not to know who brought them. Stanley leaves Michael to man his donuts.
Kevin has just broken some news to Jim, who asks when Kevin will have the final word. Kevin says this afternoon. Second opinion, apparently. Kelly comes over and asks what's up, and Kevin tells her, "I might have skin cancer." Kelly starts babbling about a lifeguard on Grey's Anatomy. "Kelly, you know what?" Jim says, shaking his head at her. Wow, Jim didn't lift a hand, and I felt that smackdown all the way over here. Free-associating on the death theme this subject has introduced, Kelly THs about how Diana's funeral was the saddest ever. "That and my sister's."
Toby spots the donuts, but Michael shuts him out, ostensibly for forgetting his birthday but actually for being Toby.
Over in Accounting, Oscar is trying to buck up Kevin, which Angela calls giving false hope. "It's probably nothing, though," she adds, off Kevin's fearful look.
A delivery woman comes in with a big flat box for Michael. He comes out of his office, acting all giddy, thinking she's his stripper gram. He sits in a chair, awaiting a lap dance, and when Pam offers to sign for it, he looks like someone just dumped a bucket of water on him. In a peeved TH, he tells a story about his seventh birthday when he got a rash from the pony his mom hired for his birthday party, and missed the whole thing while he had to have cream rubbed on him. "So that was probably my worst birthday," he concludes. Day ain't over yet.
Then he's eating the box of donuts by himself at his desk while Dwight plays "The Longest Time" on the recorder for him. Michael grumps, "Nobody even signed my birthday poster." Birthday poster? That would be the giant photo of Michael on the easel outside his office, showing him with his slicked-back, Season One hair and signed "Happy Birthday Michael [heart] Dwight." He points to the giant, tacky James Dean poster from his mom, the only one who sent him anything. Hence the big flat box a moment ago. "I bet Luke Perry's friends don't treat him like this," Michael gripes. I'm sure that's true, but then Michael probably has more friends than Luke Perry does.
Pam's getting the news about Kevin from Jim, and then THs that if she had a week to live, she'd want to go to Europe, and South America, and the Grand Canyon, and the Pacific Ocean. "It would be a pretty busy week." No kidding. If she weren't terminally ill, that much traveling would kill her.
Dwight's on a sales call when his watch alarm goes off. He hangs up immediately and calls Michael out of his office to announce that it's 11:23, the exact moment of Michael's birth. He's decided to observe the Hebrew tradition of hoisting the birthday boy on a chair. No one wants to help, of course. Dwight calls over to Kevin, who's having his shoulders rubbed by Meredith. Oscar offers to step up in Kevin's place, but Michael, in the same breath with which he's disingenuously protesting, calls Ryan over. Dwight drafts Creed as well. While watching this through the break room window, Pam gets the idea that she and Jim should go get Kevin something. Jim looks mock-doubtfully at the mayhem taking shape in the bullpen and shrugs, "We're going to need someone to create a diversion." And right on cue, Oscar, Dwight, Ryan, and Creed lift up Michael's chair and end up dislodging one of the ceiling tiles with his head.
Later, a sandwich delivery guy enters with a box, only to have Dwight complain that it's not an eight-foot sub. Apparently it's eight one-foot subs. "F," Dwight says, admitting defeat, and pays the exact total of the bill. He THs that he doesn't tip people for things he can do himself. But he did tip his urologist. "I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones," he admits. A rare vulnerable moment for Dwight, especially since he's on record as claiming to never have been sick.
Michael presents his employees with the baloney, tomato, and ketchup sandwiches, which they're not exactly thrilled about. "Get whatever you want," he snaps at them, gracelessly carrying them out of the break room. "Choke on it."
Michael THs about his sixteenth birthday, when a girl he had a date with went out with another Michael by mistake instead and got him a cake, even though it wasn't the other Michael's birthday. "So that was the worst birthday I ever had," Michael concludes. And no, the deleted scenes on the DVD don't cover all thirty-nine of the others.
Pam and Jim are at the grocery store, having picked up for Kevin a big bag of M&Ms (Kevin's favorite candy), an American Pie 2 DVD (Kevin's favorite movie, but he foolishly lent it to Creed) and sixty-nine cups o'noodles (favorite number, favorite lunch). Thoughtful, but sixty-nine lunches may come off as cruel if it turns out Kevin's only got a month to live. Surely even he wouldn't relish the thought of eating nothing but cup o'noodles for literally the rest of his life.
Ryan's fixing his own lunch in the break room, when Dwight comes in to say there's still five feet of sub left. "Someone ate three feet of that thing?" Ryan marvels disgustedly. Dwight takes the ice cream cake out of the freezer. Angela comes and tries to take it from him, but Dwight refuses, saying he can't risk anything going wrong. Dropping his voice, he asks Angela about the "meeting" later to "discuss finances," he adds, cutting his eyes at Ryan. Angela says yes. "But don't expect any cookie," she whispers back. In the background, Ryan looks up in alarm. And Angela leaves, emphasizing that no matter how hungry Dwight may be there will be no cookie.
Ryan. Is it still a TH if the head doesn't talk, but only gazes around in mute horror?
At the grocery store, Pam acts surprised when Jim picks up a jug of fabric softener. I would have pegged him as a dryer-sheet guy too.
At the bullpen, Dwight presents the birthday ice-cream cake while everyone sings "Happy Birthday," with Michael harmonizing. But at the end, Kevin's cell phone rings, and Dwight finishes the song alone while everyone listens for news. "Respect the birthday, please?" Michael bitches at Kevin, and Kevin hangs up. "It was just Daisy," Kevin says. No news, in other words. Michael blows out his candles, and is disappointed when they don't light again. Of course he fails to get that when you're expecting trick candles, normal candles are trick candles. Well, that, plus nobody cares. Noticing that Meredith is giving Kevin a hug, Michael asks why he isn't getting any. Angela flatly tells him, "No one cares about your birthday. Kevin's waiting to hear if he has skin cancer." The camera zooms in on Michael's devastated face. When he recovers, he says, "That's terrible. Terrible news for both of us." And the he carries his cake into the office and slams the door. For someone who's wanted to be the center of attention all day, he certainly handled the last ten seconds poorly.
Jim and Pam get to the cash register, but nobody is there. Jim dares Pam to make an announcement into the unattended microphone, and she comes up with the following, complete with Darth Vader voice: "Luke! This is your father! Come set the table for dinner!" Eventually, a humorless store employee chases her away while Jim acts all embarrassed by her antics.
Kevin is talking to Toby about the terrible Dunder Mifflin health plan (again, I'm linking to that episode) when Michael excitedly interrupts with some encouraging survivability stats for skin cancer that he just got off the internet. Stupid internet. "It's still scary," Kevin says. But since Kevin has a one-in-fifty chance of living into the third season, Michael wants to go ahead with the fun. When Toby remarks that nobody's really in the mood, Michael "invites" Kevin to go ahead and take a sick day. "If I go home I'll just drive myself crazy," Kevin protests. Michael snaps that Kevin's already driving everybody else crazy. "...Crazy with worry," he amends unconvincingly.
Later, in his office, he makes himself a fake Livestrong bracelet out of yellow paper. Oh, Michael.
Jim and Pam return to the office, and Dwight asks Jim where he's been. "And don't say the bathroom, because I kicked in all the stalls." Without missing a beat, Jim gets ready to tell Michael about Dwight's invasion of privacy, and suddenly Dwight owes Jim for covering for him. There has to be some kind of name for the specific martial art that Jim has perfected in which he consistently turns Dwight's uptight officiousness around on him. Schrute-o?
Michael comes into the bullpen and announces that to make Kevin feel better, they're all going someplace special. "Is this trip in any way related to your birthday?" Stanley asks. Michael acts offended at the very question.
He also acts offended when they arrive at the ice skating rink and see the giant HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL SCOTT banner, but since it's already up, he figures they might as well leave it. Good thing Michael told Dwight earlier to save the surprise. Anyway, let's go skating! Kelly helps Ryan, draping his arm around her to help him balance. Oscar does twirls and shit, because he's gay. Jim helps Pam, and they're both nearly bowled over by a tool in full hockey gear who buzzes them. And that tool? Is Michael. He THs that he thought about playing in the NHL, but you never get to spend time with your wife and kids. "And I really want a wife and kids," he says. Later, Michael mercilessly checks Toby into the boards. Then he goes over to Pam and, in light of all the cancer going around, advises her to check herself out in the shower. "Those things are like ticking time-bags," he says. Then he zips over to where Kevin is and flashes his fake Livestrong bracelet at him. And then he runs into his former realtor and future ex-girlfriend Carol, who's there with her kids. Michael offers to give the kids a tow, which Carol allows. The kids hang onto Michael's hockey stick as he gently pulls them out onto the ice, skating backwards. Carol smiles, because I wasn't using "hockey stick" as a euphemism.
Creed plays a shoot-'em-up game with a kid in the arcade. That's probably what I'd be doing, too, if not for the fear that Creed might pistol-whip me with the plastic gun at any moment.
Kevin's cell phone rings. Michael abandons Carol's kids and dramatically zooms all the way across the rink over to where Kevin is, while the other coworkers gather around more normally. After Kevin hangs up, he tells everyone, "It's negative." Everyone looks relieved except Michael, who rips off his paper bracelet, tells Kevin they'll beat it, and hugs him tight.
Later, Michael sits in the bleachers, having belatedly figured out that apparently "negative" means "good" in the medical community.
At a long table in the snack bar, Kevin and Michael sit together at the end and take turns opening their gifts. Kevin is thrilled about a cheesecake get-well card, and Michael loves his Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Baby Penguins hockey jersey. That is, until he sees that the back is emblazoned with FROM DWIGHT and the number 1. Pam gives Michael a gift "from everyone." You know those themed fragrance gift packages that come in a big display box and contain a bottle of cologne, and a bottle of aftershave that smells just like the cologne, and a bottle of God knows what else that also smells like the cologne because nobody ever actually opens those things, let alone uses them? Well, Pam and Jim got one for Michael. The fragrance is, by the way, evocatively named "Night Swept." Michael, touched, sincerely thanks everyone. You just know he's always wanted one of those.
Back out on the ice, Pam THs that Michael's birthday actually went pretty well. "It was a good day," she says shyly, over a little flashback of her and Jim shopping together. Seriously, they went to the grocery store together and didn't want to kill each other before it was over? Does the woman need to be hit over the head or what?