A few weeks into a new job, I tried to explain something to a colleague.

He'd asked about pricing tiers—how they work, when charges kick in. Standard stuff. I used an analogy about water and buckets. Structured it so the concept would click on first read. Edited it once for clarity before hitting send.

My lead flagged it as potentially AI-generated.

Not because it was wrong. (It was, partially—I'd conflated two tier models.) But before the accuracy issue even came up, the concern was: this seems like it was written by a machine.

It wasn't.

I'd just... thought

The first time I noticed it, I was half-asleep and looking for a phone case.

Not even a special one. I wasn’t on some minimalist Japanese leather blog with curated photos of concrete and moss. I was on Google, typing with one thumb in bed:

“iphone case, modern, functional, premium”

I clicked a couple of things. Scrolled. Decided I was too tired to make a decision about drop protection and fake leather. Closed the tab. Opened YouTube, because obviously my brain needed a 27-minute video essay about a game I will never actually play.

And there it was.

Mous.