Pandora forgetting her phone is about as likely as Mr. Whiskers volunteering for a bath, which is why it immediately caught my attention. I was making breakfast while John Mercer wandered into the kitchen looking like he’d spent the night negotiating with his alarm clock instead of sleeping. Mr. Whiskers, meanwhile, was in the living room chasing his tail with the unwavering confidence of someone who had absolutely no understanding of physics. As I carried my plate toward the couch, I noticed Pandora’s phone lying on the cushion exactly where she’d set it before we left for brunch. At first I didn’t think much of it. Surely she’d realize she’d forgotten it, turn the car around, and be back within a minute or two. Pandora checks for her phone almost constantly. Keys, wallet, phone—it’s a routine so automatic that I’ve seen her pat her pockets while already holding the phone in her hand. Five minutes passed. Then ten. By the fifteen-minute mark, I had accepted that she’d actually driven away without it, which felt unusual enough that my imagination immediately volunteered to investigate.
I picked up the phone and stared at the blank screen for a moment before realizing I’d briefly considered calling her, despite the fact that the phone was literally in my hand. That wasn’t my strongest moment. John wandered into the living room carrying a mug of coffee and caught me looking at it. “Problem?” he asked. I held up the phone. “Pandora forgot it.” He looked at it for all of two seconds before shrugging. “She’ll come back.” That was it. No concern. No curiosity. No speculation. Just complete confidence that the situation would resolve itself. “That’s your entire analysis?” I asked. John nodded. “Seems pretty straightforward.” I frowned. “You don’t think it’s strange?” He took a sip of coffee. “I think it’s a phone on a couch.”
I set the phone back down, but every time I walked through the living room my eyes found it again. It’s amazing how one perfectly ordinary object can suddenly seem important simply because it isn’t where it’s supposed to be. Mr. Whiskers wandered over, sniffed the phone once, concluded it wasn’t edible, and immediately lost interest. Even the cat had a healthier perspective than I did. My brain, on the other hand, had already begun constructing explanations. Maybe Pandora had gotten halfway across town before realizing it was missing. Maybe she’d stopped for coffee and reached into her purse only to discover the phone wasn’t there. Maybe she’d spent the last ten minutes trying to remember my phone number from memory, only to discover that smartphones had quietly convinced all of us to outsource that part of our brains years ago. Every explanation sounded completely reasonable, which somehow convinced me there had to be another explanation hiding underneath them.
John returned a few minutes later and found me standing exactly where he’d left me. “You’ve built a theory, haven’t you?” he asked. “Several,” I admitted. “How many?” “I’m still eliminating possibilities.” He laughed into his coffee. “You’re investigating a forgotten phone.” “I’m investigating why Pandora forgot a forgotten phone.” “There’s a difference?” “A significant one.” He shook his head in the way people do when they’ve accepted that continuing the conversation will only encourage me. “You know,” he said, “most people would assume she simply forgot it.” “I know,” I replied. “That’s exactly what makes it suspicious.”
About twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find Pandora standing there with the slightly embarrassed smile people wear when they’ve done something completely out of character. “I knew I’d forgotten something,” she said. I handed her the phone. “When did you notice?” She slipped it into her purse. “When I tried to pay for my coffee.” I blinked. “That’s it?” “That’s it.” “Nothing happened?” She looked confused. “Should something have happened?” “I don’t know. Car trouble. A flat tire. A surprise family emergency. Maybe you spent twenty minutes trying to remember my phone number.” Pandora laughed. “No, Hal. I borrowed the café’s phone for a minute, sorted out the payment, enjoyed my coffee, and came home. It wasn’t exactly a crisis.”
John looked over from the couch with the sort of grin that only appears when reality has thoroughly defeated someone else’s imagination. “So,” he asked, “how’d the investigation turn out?” I looked at Pandora, then at the phone, then at Mr. Whiskers, who had finally caught his tail only to discover he had absolutely no plan for what came next. “Not great,” I admitted. Pandora smiled as she slipped her phone into her pocket. “Sometimes forgetting your phone just means you forgot your phone.” She was absolutely right, although I wasn’t thrilled about admitting it. I’d spent the better part of half an hour constructing increasingly elaborate explanations for something that had a perfectly ordinary answer. Meanwhile, Pandora had simply enjoyed a cup of coffee, remembered her phone, and come home to retrieve it. Mr. Whiskers handled disappointment far more efficiently than I did. He let go of his tail, yawned once, and decided the entire matter was no longer worth thinking about. Looking back, I probably should have followed his example.