After Phyllis is flashed in the parking lot, Michael tries to show his appreciation for the office women, by taking them to the mall.
Air date:
Tropes
- Action Figure Justification: When Jim suggests Dwight should run the women's appreciation meeting because he plays with dolls, Dwight responds with this, and adds that they are worth more than Jim's car.
- Bait-and-Switch: According to Michael, Jan has a schoolgirl fantasy that she acts out with him. Michael is the schoolgirl.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: For Michael some of Jan's "cons" are that she wears too much make up, that she is flat-chested and insecure about her body, and that he's unhappy when he's with her.
- Call-Back:
- To "Chistmas Party," when Meredith flashed Michael.
- Also, while searching for the flasher Dwight stabs some bushes by the parking lot with the stake he fashioned out of a broom in "Business School".
- Cheated Angle: When Dwight views his reflection in The Stinger, he is positioned in such a way that his reflection would only have a mustache when seen by the camera, not by Dwight himself.
- Cringe Comedy: Michael's "flasher" routine. Everyone is suitably disgusted.
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: The ludicrously cumbersome system of punishments that Dwight has devised, and which he threatens Jim with, amounts to this. Three demerits earns you a citation, five citations earn a violation, four violations earn you a verbal warning, and an unspecified number of those earn a written warning, which if you get two earn you a disciplinary review, which ends up on the desk of Dwight’s superior. Who is Jim. Basically, in order to be punished at all, Jim would have to earn (120 * x) demerits, and even then he only ends up being reported to himself.
- Department of Redundancy Department: When listing Jan's "cons", Michael lists both "breasts: nothing to write home about" and "flat-chested".
- Description Cut: A pan, not a cut, but still applies.Pam: (reading the new dress code) "Sleeves down to the wrists, buttoned-up collars, and muted colors." Nobody dresses like that!
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Averted. When Michael describes his relationship with Jan, the office ladies are appropriately horrified. As more details emerge, they band together to try and convince Michael to end it with Jan and he very nearly does.
- Embarrassing Voicemail: Michael breaks up with Jan over voicemail, unaware that she is on her way to the office. When she comes in, Michael hangs up and pretends everything is fine. She tells him she wants to get back together, unaware of the voicemail. She sees she has a missed call from Michael and listens to it in front of him.
- Even Insensitive Has Standards: Michael realizes, as he's saying it, that asking to see Toby's penis to prove he isn't the flasher not only isn't funny, but is also sexual harassment.
- Freudian Slip: Dwight calls Phyllis "Phallus."
- Misspelling Out Loud: Combined with Mondegreen. Michael attempts to spell out "Respect" a la Aretha Franklin, and it comes out a mumbly "R-E-S-P-'svee'-T".
- Oblivious to His Own Description: The "flasher" recreation drawn by Pam visibly resembles Dwight without glasses and with a mustache, but Dwight doesn't recognize it. It takes till the end of the episode and a mirror with the mustache for Dwight to catch on, prompting him to curse Pam.
- Perfectly Cromulent Word: Jim gives us the term "disadulation" in the cold open. You don't want to know what it is.
- Safe Word: Jan and Michael have one, although Jan pretends she doesn't hear it.
- Shout-Out: Michael tosses coins in the fountain and wishes for Pam to have courage, Angela to have a heart, and for Kelly to have a brain.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: As Meredith crams her van into a compact spot and then scrapes it back out, Michael attempts to sensitively inform the camera that despite her example to the contrary, many women are very capable drivers.
- That Came Out Wrong: Michael to Toby, "Let's see your penis!" Uncharacteristically, Michael realizes this right away.
- Wondrous Ladies Room: With all the women gone, the men decide to visit the ladies' restroom and discover it is much cleaner and has a couch and artwork.
