Mistaken Identity

Mistaken Identity

Mistaken Identity

By PadmeKSkywalker and Eruvyweth

ID card day at Dunder-Mifflin was a yearly event. Its usual victims included Dwight and Kevin, and occasionally Ryan if Michael felt particularly juvenile. But normally Jim Halpert was well-liked enough that nobody tried to pull anything on him.

This year, however, there was no prank involved: just an extremely unfortunate typo.

Jim blinked. It didn't disappear.

"Uh, Toby?"

The HR representative turned back to him with all the attitude of a weary sigh, if not the actual sound. "Yeah?" he replied mildly.

Jim held up the ID card in his hand. "It's no big deal, really," he demurred. "Just…my last name's not Hellbert."

Now it was Toby's turn to blink. He took the card from Jim and double-checked it.

"Huh," he remarked. "That's weird."

Jim waited for a beat until Toby didn't seem to have anything else to say. "So…can you fix it?"

"What?"

"Can you fix it. The typo."

Toby shook his head and handed the card back to Jim. "We're out of printer cards for today. But…I can get more tomorrow and get you a new card then."

"Wait-so-" Jim stared between the card and the placid face of the HR representative. "I don't have to wear this for the rest of-"

"Sorry, man." With a parting shrug, Toby returned to his desk in the corner, and Jim was left with the dismal prospect of being "Mr. Hellbert" for the remainder of the day.

*---*

"Hellbert?"

Somehow it sounded even more ridiculous coming from her mouth. "Ah, yes," Jim admitted.

"I like it. How did you manage that?" she demanded with a grin.

"I really don't know." He cleared his throat and examined the surface of the desk keenly.

"Well, did you write it down or just tell it to him?"

"Pam, I can't be expected to remember every detail of my life for the past few days. I don't pay attention to this sort of thing. That's your job."

"Wait…" Pam scooted her chair back toward the filing cabinet. "Yep, right here. You wrote it down as 'Halpert,' looks like. But then, you have awful handwriting," she added impishly.

"But I don't make up new letters out of nowhere," Jim protested.

She shook her head. "Maybe Dwight did it."

"Dwight?" Jim blinked and looked over his shoulder to where Dwight was meticulously straightening his own ID card so that it rested exactly over his heart ("It could save my life someday," he heard him whisper to Ryan, who nodded absently). "Yeah, because Dwight's imaginative enough to think up something like this. Besides, he hasn't played a retaliation prank on me in two and a half years."

"What did he do then?"

Jim grinned. "He put a whoopee cushion in my chair."

Pam smothered something between a snort and a laugh. "And did you sit on it?"

He looked affronted. "Of course not. I told him it was an expired model that was illegal to sell or own in the U.S., and advised him, as a very concerned friend, to get out of the country as quickly as possible." He scrunched up his face. "I think he got as far as New Hampshire."

The broad grin on Pam's face, he thought, was probably worth whatever humiliation he would be facing for the rest of the day.

*---*

Jim tried to slouch over his desk in such a way that his computer monitor would hide the left side of his chest from Dwight's beady eyes. It was working, for a while, until he straightened up to return a conspiratorial smile from the receptionist.

"Question: What is that on your shirt?"

Jim swore under his breath. "Umm, what are you talking about, Dwight?"

"Don't play games with me," the other salesman sneered. "You know exactly what I mean."

"Oh, the ID card?" Jim glanced down at it nonchalantly. "That's really simple. See, it has your name on it, and then anybody from the company who doesn't know who you are can just-"

"No, you idiot, what does it say?" Dwight knocked over a pencil holder or two as he leaned over the desk straining to read the small print.

Jim sat back lazily, forcing Dwight to keep going forward until his belly was splayed on their shared desks. "I'm hurt, Dwight. All these years and you don't remember my name."

"That's not your name, is it?"

"Of course it's my name! What else would you expect to find on my-"

"HELLBERT!"