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Observation on Life

Published March 27, 1991

Nobody did it
By Nancy Gable
For the Mirror Democrat

Every household has a silent, mysterious, unseen visitor. He gives no notice of his comings and goings but the evidence of his visits is always clear.

Who is this visitor? Ask any member of a larger household, "Who took the scissors and didn't put them back" and a chorus of voices reply "I didn't," "not me" and "I haven't used them." Ask who left the milk out and more of the same is heard. The visitor has struck -- "Nobody" did it.

Mr. Nobody is a daily visitor in our household of six. He is a favorite companion of our four children and a dastardly villain to my husband and me.

If there is blame to be placed, the children know that Mr. Nobody can take it. They don't have to accept responsibility for unreturned household items, toys and paper littered on the floor, misplaced gloves and caps or spills of food or drink left uncleaned.

Nobody did it -- so it must be Mom's or Dad's job to clean up, pick up, find or put away. It couldn't possibly be their responsibility.

Even before we had children my husband was plagued by this villain's dastardly deeds. He would be fixing a vehicle and the exact tool he needed would be the only tool missing from a set of tools. Nobody used it and didn't put it back.

He would put a tool down and when he needed it again, it was gone. Nobody had moved it. The chain left in the truck box was no longer there. It was now in a corner of the garage where Nobody had put it. The gas valve to the torch was left on and all the gas was gone. Nobody did it.

Even I have been harassed by this evil villain. His favorite trick to play on me is to hide something I'm looking for until I give up on finding it. Then, later, I discover the item in a place that I had thoroughly searched and could swear it wasn't there.

The most recent example of this is the bird book we lost last summer. I searched a pile of magazines, papers and pamphlets where I was sure the book had last been seen. It wasn't there.

Over time I used other items from that pile and the missing book was not to be found. One day I was idly flipping through the pile and, lo and behold, there it was. Nobody had hidden it and now, finally, had decided to return it.

Over time we have come to accept and even joke about this unseen visitor. Whenever there's a minor problem, we place the blame where it belongs -- Nobody did it.

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