I’m sitting on the couch trying to read when I notice Pandora’s laptop open on the coffee table. I am not attempting to look at her screen. This distinction is important because the laptop is facing me, the screen is approximately four feet away, and information that enters a person’s field of vision without deliberate effort cannot reasonably be classified as snooping. At first I assume she has left some work open, but then I notice a spreadsheet filled with dates, numbers, colored cells, and several small charts. There are enough entries to suggest that whatever she is tracking has been going on for a while. I look away because it is none of my business. Then John starts humming in the kitchen. This would normally be irrelevant. John hums while making food, washing dishes, looking for something in the refrigerator, and occasionally while standing in the middle of the kitchen apparently trying to remember why he entered it. The problem is that he has been humming the same song for several days. I don’t know the title, but it has a guitar riff that repeats often enough to become recognizable against my will. John hums three notes, pauses while opening a cabinet, and continues. I glance at Pandora’s spreadsheet again. One of the columns contains what appears to be a list of times. Another contains numbers. A third has several cells highlighted in green. I tell myself these things are unrelated. Then John stops humming, looks at his phone, taps something, and resumes humming. I put my book down.
“What?” John asks from the kitchen. I tell him I didn’t say anything. “You’re staring at me.” I explain that I’m observing the room. “You’re observing me from the room.” I tell him that is an unnecessarily personal interpretation, and John goes back to making his sandwich. I return to my book, but the situation has changed because I now know John is aware that I am observing him, which means any subsequent behavior could be influenced by that knowledge. This makes further observation methodologically difficult. Fortunately, Mr Whiskers enters the living room and jumps onto the couch beside me, providing a neutral activity. I scratch behind his ears while pretending to read. John hums the guitar riff again. Mr Whiskers’ ears rotate toward the kitchen. I notice this but deliberately refuse to assign significance to it. After yesterday’s power-strip incident, I am trying to establish reasonable boundaries regarding feline evidence. Pandora comes downstairs a few minutes later and sits beside me. She looks at her laptop, types something into the spreadsheet, changes one of the cells from yellow to green, and closes the lid. This would have ended the matter if John had not immediately called from the kitchen, “Did you put it in?” Pandora answers, “Yes.” John says, “Good.” Pandora says, “You’re still behind.” John says, “I know.” There is a short silence. Then he starts humming again.
I look at Pandora. She looks at me. I say nothing. “No,” she says. I remind her that I haven’t asked anything. “You’re going to.” I tell her that seems presumptive. “You have your investigation face.” I explain that I don’t have an investigation face, at which point John calls from the kitchen, “You absolutely have an investigation face.” This is the first indication that they may have discussed my facial expressions independently, which is itself information I decide not to pursue. Pandora gets up to make coffee, leaving the laptop closed on the table. I do not touch it. This is worth emphasizing because there was a time when curiosity might have encouraged a more direct approach, but I have made measurable progress recently. I asked Pandora directly about the repeated pharmacy calls instead of checking her phone. I did not inspect her phone when it was mysteriously sitting at three percent. I did not interrogate John’s laptop. I am developing restraint. The fact that I now know there is a spreadsheet containing dates, times, numbers, colored status indicators, and information that John is apparently “behind” on does not alter those principles. It merely makes them considerably more inconvenient.
At work the next day, I mention the situation to Karen in carefully neutral terms. I do not accuse anyone of anything. I explain that Pandora maintains a spreadsheet, John apparently contributes information to it, Pandora updates the spreadsheet immediately after receiving something from him, and the two of them have developed terminology involving whether something has been “put in” and whether John is “behind.” Karen listens until I finish and asks, “Have you asked Pandora what the spreadsheet is for?” I tell her no because I am trying not to overreact. Dave, who is sitting nearby, says that constructing a timeline of somebody else’s spreadsheet might already qualify as overreacting. I explain that I have not constructed a timeline. I have merely retained the sequence of events accurately. Karen asks whether I looked at the spreadsheet. I tell her only what was visible from the couch. “So you don’t actually know what any of it says?” she asks. I admit that I do not. She nods. “This feels like an important weakness in the theory.” I tell her it isn’t a theory yet. Dave asks what would need to happen before it became one. I tell him additional evidence would be required. Karen says, “Please don’t go looking for additional evidence.” I assure her that I have no intention of doing that. The fact that both she and Pandora now occasionally tell me not to investigate things before I have announced an investigation is becoming a separate issue, but I decide this is neither the time nor the place to raise it.
When I get home, John is at the kitchen table with his phone beside him, and Pandora is on the couch with the laptop open again. I decide that the responsible approach is direct clarification. “What are you two tracking?” I ask. John looks at Pandora. Pandora looks at John. This exchange lasts perhaps one second, but it is long enough to establish that they both understand exactly what I am referring to. Pandora then asks, “How long have you been wondering about this?” I tell her that the duration of my curiosity is unrelated to the question. John starts laughing. Pandora turns the laptop around and says, “Fine. Look.” The spreadsheet is called HOUSEHOLD CHALLENGE. I stare at it. Pandora explains that three weeks ago she and John were complaining about how inconsistent they had become with exercise, so they made a competition. The spreadsheet tracks steps, workouts, and whether they hit their daily goals. Green means completed. Yellow means partial. Red means missed. The little charts show weekly totals. John is behind because Pandora has exercised four more days than he has. The times I noticed are when they entered their results. There is no encrypted communication, no behavioral tracking, and no secret system for exchanging information about me.
I point toward the kitchen and ask, “What about the song?” John looks confused. “What song?” I remind him of the one he keeps humming. He thinks for a moment and says, “Oh. That stupid guitar thing?” I tell him yes. “It’s stuck in my head.” I wait, but apparently that is the entire explanation. “That’s it?” I ask. “That’s generally how songs work.” Pandora looks at me, and I explain that the timing made it appear connected to the spreadsheet. She asks how. I tell her John frequently hummed the song near the same times she updated it. John says, “I live here. I’m frequently near most things that happen here.” This is technically correct but unnecessarily dismissive of temporal correlation. The explanation is ordinary enough that I should be able to let the matter go. Pandora and John started a fitness challenge. They track their results in a spreadsheet. John has an annoying song stuck in his head. None of these facts require a larger explanation. More importantly, I did not touch Pandora’s laptop, read anything she had not voluntarily shown me, involve Mrs Jenkins, or attempt to decode John’s humming. I asked a direct question and received a direct answer. Pandora even acknowledges this as improvement, although she adds that it would have been more impressive if I had asked the question before discussing the spreadsheet with Karen and Dave. I tell her independent consultation is not the same thing as an investigation. She tells me that sentence is exactly why she worries about me.
That evening I’m on the couch when Pandora opens the spreadsheet and enters something. A few seconds later John walks through the living room, glances at his phone, and says, “Ha. I’m catching up.” Pandora says, “Not even close.” John points at her and says, “Tomorrow.” Pandora laughs. Mr Whiskers jumps onto the coffee table, walks directly across the keyboard, and changes something on the screen. Pandora immediately picks him up. “No, you don’t get points,” she tells him. I look at the spreadsheet. I look at Mr Whiskers. I look at Pandora. “Don’t,” she says. I remind her that I didn’t say anything. “You were going to.” I lean back against the couch and pick up my book while Mr Whiskers settles beside me, apparently disqualified from the competition before I even knew he had entered it. I’m not saying Pandora can predict what I’m thinking. I’m just saying that’s now the second time she has answered a question I never asked.