I was at work this morning when I noticed a sticky note sitting on Karen’s desk. Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention to someone else’s reminders, but this one caught my eye because it simply said, “Call Mrs. Jenkins” and was written in bright red ink. Now, before anyone jumps to conclusions, I wasn’t snooping. The note was sitting right there in plain sight while Karen was away from her desk. Unfortunately, once I saw it, my brain immediately decided it required further analysis.
At first, I assumed there had to be a simple explanation. Maybe Mrs. Jenkins needed information about something. Maybe Karen had promised to follow up on a conversation. Maybe it was completely routine. But then I started wondering why the note was written in red. Red usually means urgency. Urgency means importance. Importance means there must be a story behind it. Within minutes, I had transformed a perfectly ordinary reminder into what I believed was a developing situation.
The more I thought about it, the less sense my theories made. Mrs. Jenkins is a neighbor, not an international spy. Karen is my coworker, not an undercover investigator. Yet somehow I found myself trying to determine what kind of conversation would require a red reminder note. Was it important? Was it time-sensitive? Was there some piece of information everyone else knew except me? The fact that none of this involved me did little to discourage my curiosity.
By lunchtime, I had created at least six possible explanations. One involved a misunderstanding. Another involved neighborhood gossip. One theory was so ridiculous that I refused to admit it even to myself. Every time I thought I had reached a reasonable conclusion, I’d find a new detail to obsess over. Why red ink? Why not blue? Why a sticky note instead of an email? Why did the note seem so important when, objectively speaking, it probably wasn’t?
When Karen finally returned to her desk, I decided to stop speculating and ask her directly.
“What’s the note about?” I asked.
She looked at it for a second and shrugged.
“Oh, that. Mrs. Jenkins volunteers at the community center. She’s helping organize a fundraiser, and I told her I’d call her back.”
That was it.
No mystery.
No secret connections.
No hidden agenda.
Just a fundraiser.
I sat there quietly for a moment while my entire investigation collapsed into a pile of completely unnecessary assumptions. Karen went back to work without another thought, while I was left wondering how I had managed to turn a callback reminder into a full-scale conspiracy.
When I got home later that evening, I told John Mercer the story. He listened patiently, nodded, and then asked the question I probably should have asked myself from the beginning.
“Did it ever occur to you that the note might mean exactly what it said?”
I didn’t answer.
Mostly because I knew he was right.
Mr. Whiskers was stretched out on the couch nearby and gave me a slow blink that felt surprisingly judgmental. At this point, I’ve accepted that both John Mercer and the cat are usually ahead of me whenever these investigations start. Honestly, that might be the real lesson here. Not every red sticky note is a clue. Sometimes it’s just a reminder. And sometimes the biggest mystery is how long it takes me to figure that out.