For anyone to say that they are the “world’s biggest fan” of anything is about the most cliche thing that can be said. That being said, I’m a huge fan of the NBC series “The Office.” Let me explain a bit.

For those who don’t know, “The Office” aired on NBC from 2005 to 2013. The series was comprised of 201 episodes over nine seasons. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I have legitimately seen each of these 201 episodes over 20 times, though many of them I’ve seen a lot more than that. I firmly believe it is one of the greatest television shows that has ever existed, to the point where it actually makes me cringe a little when I see or hear a line misquoted. You’ve gotta respect it.

There was a point in my life when I watched at least one episode of the show each day for nearly three years, and I still watch it several times each week.

“The Office” is set in Scranton, PA and follows the lives of the employees of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. While the vast majority of the show was actually filmed in California, there were many moments of dialogue when actual Scranton-area locations were mentioned and scenes where the locations were actually filmed or fictionally portrayed. As my wife and I have repeatedly watched the series, I have often said to her, “I wonder if [insert place here] is a real place in Scranton?” And so for my birthday this year, she surprised me with a full-blown “The Office” experience, including, as the icing on the cake, a trip to Scranton to experience some of these places for ourselves.

Before the trip, the birthday surprise began with a t-shirt from Cooper’s Seafood. Cooper’s is referenced a few times in the show but is actually visually seen in an episode called “Business Ethics.” The shirt was accompanied by a super cool laptop decal of the four (arguably) main characters of the show: Michael (Steve Carell), Dwight (Rainn Wilson), Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer). She had also told me that we would be taking a surprise trip the following weekend, but I had no idea where we were going.

A couple of days later, it was the day of the trip. I walked out to my kitchen to see a gigantic photo of my face, signed by each member of my family (from “Michael’s Birthday”) and while it was pretty shocking to see my face that large (especially first thing in the morning), it was awesome. To my left was a banner, plain white with black bold text that read “IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY” and half-inflated balloons on the table (from “Lecture Circuit: Part One”).