Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody

My mum sometimes refers to my dad as "Somebody".  For example, "Somebody forgot to shut the door last night and the cat got out."  

Another example might be, "Well, Somebody went to the doctor last week to see about his sore foot.  Now Somebody is wearing a splint on his foot."  I am not really sure why she does this but she does.  If you've read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas you would know that in the book Bruno's mother often refers to Bruno's father as "Some People".  Marian Keyes refers to her husband as "Himself" when writing about her real life (as well as several novels and short stories she has written several articles and recounts).  I find it interesting that some women refer to their husbands by anything other than their name.  There is no real reason for telling you all this, but I found it interesting.  I suppose it is also noteworthy that my mother is not entirely unique when it comes to this specific characteristic and therefore this is not one of the reasons that she is nuts.  Unless, the other people I mentioned are crazy as well and their tendency to refer to people using such an odd word is an indication of their mental instability.  Although, I don't think that my mother is crazy.  Well, not like, clinically crazy or anything.  She's just a bit quirky... but aren't we all. 

My noticing of Mother's habit of calling Dad "Somebody" reminded me of a story that was on the fridge when I was a child.  Dad had stuck it there and one day (when I was refusing to do something), he took it down from the fridge and put it on the table in front of me.  He said, "read that," and left the room.  

This is one of the things that I love about the internet.  I ran a search on Google and found the 'story' that used to be stuck on our fridge.  I copied it (click here to see the source) and pasted it below so you could see why I thought of it.  That was a very round about way of telling you that I remembered this story and found it on the internet (happy dance) and you should read it too.  Here it is... 

This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.  Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job.  Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.  It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

Okay, now go back and read it again. Done that yet?

I could tell you what that means... but I think that if you are reading my blog, you are probably a very intelligent person and you can work it out for yourself.  No, really... you can! :)

That was Monday!