Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me_ (And Other Concerns) - Mindy Kaling [42]
• protein bars
• a personal hygiene spray that I can only describe as a butt freshener
• socks with individual toes
• a travel-size tube of toothpaste for “women’s teeth”
• a SpongeBob SquarePants keychain
• a mechanical pencil (kinda cool, but it was instantly stolen when I took it to work)
• weird coffee pods that work only if you buy the coffee machine that the pods are made for
• tan silicone cutlets you glue to your real breasts
• a crotchless girdle meant to hold your back fat in
• a children’s book written by a lead in the original Beverly Hills 90210
• a diabetes cookbook (I actually love this)
The gift bags are junk bags. I’m not telling you this to complain, but rather to relieve you of any romantic notions you might have of them. Use those romantic notions for something else, like thinking about the significance and grandeur of our National Mint. Not only would you never purchase any of the stuff in these gift bags, but you would not even give it to a relative you have a chilly relationship with. There is, however, one excellent perk we get on our show: I’ve enjoyed an endless supply of free paper, paperclips, envelopes, and office supplies since joining The Office, because I steal props on a regular basis.
BECOMING A LITTLE BIT FAMOUS
When you have it as good as I know I do, work-wise, you rarely have time to enjoy your fabulous good fortune, because you’re too busy worrying about when it will run out. After the first season of The Office, I remember Jenna Fischer, Angela Kinsey, and I got turned away from a party thrown by a famous magazine at a fancy hotel on Sunset Boulevard. The party coordinators didn’t think being on The Office warranted our getting in. We stood and watched the One Tree Hill cast waltz in with no problem. The PR people at the party regarded us with the disdain normally reserved for on-set tutors for child actors. (For the record, there is usually no one weirder on a set than the tutor for child actors. They tend to be aging hippie ladies with inappropriately long hair tied coquettishly in a messy gray braid, and an all-denim outfit that would put Jay Leno to shame.)
Luckily, I was not in the aging child-tutor stage for long, though. Midway through season two, we were finally getting recognition due to our track record of a dozen great episodes, and people were into us. It was glorious. The highlight was one Saturday, when I was vacuuming my car at a gas station on Santa Monica Boulevard during the Gay Pride parade and a group of gay veterans in uniform shrieked, “Oh my God, it’s Kelly Kapoor!” The guys at the gas station thought I was hot shit.
This is a photo of when I directed “Michael’s Last Dundies,” which I also wrote. In this moment I am explaining what comedy is to Will Ferrell. (photo credit 14.5)
Being the “It” show in season two presented its own challenges, though. A common refrain we heard was “I disliked your first season, but by the second season you really came into your own.” I think people thought their compliment meant more if they tempered it with something insulting first. As if I were to say, “I initially thought you were ugly, but then you walked closer to me and I realized you were pretty.” I love our first season. I think it is a little dark and really funny. I found the phrase “came into your own” especially weird, as though The Office finally developed breasts or something.
WHAT WE HAVE TO BE SCARED ABOUT
What’s coming up next is a perennial fear in the television world. Some people who work in the industry confidently ignore all new good shows, saying, “There’s room for lots of good television. That won’t affect us,” but that’s simply not true. There’s room for a little good scripted television and many, many reality TV shows about monitored weight loss. If the science were there to genetically clone Jillian Michaels, our network would just be different filmed iterations of obese people losing weight, all day long. My friend Charlie Grandy once joked that it is only a matter of time before there is a category at the Emmys