I've never actually met Nobody. And yet he has been a fixture in every incarnation of my shop that ever existed. Nobody was responsible for 90 percent of all the problems I ever encountered.

Nobody broke the bandsaw blade. Nobody took the table saw wrench and put it in some obscure location. When a customer called and left a message, it was Nobody who wrote down the phone number. Nobody was the only one to notice that the dust collection system had stopped working. Had this been noticed by anyone other than Nobody, the problem might have been corrected before the fan clogged and the motor burned out. But Nobody says nothing. He keeps everything to himself.

Nobody knows where that drill press jig is. The one that took a ton of hours to make. The one we need right now because the job has to be delivered tomorrow and we haven't even started making the parts. Nobody knows. Nobody also knows that it matters little because the drill press chuck is seized up.

Nobody knows how the teeth got broken off the radial arm saw blade. And how those clamp handles got bent. Nobody knows who neglected to clean out the spray gun and pot the last time it was used. And Nobody knows why that entire list of doors was cut with the heights and widths reversed so that the entire set had to be recut and half of the 2,000 bf of cherry you bought for the job was not going to be useable.

But Nobody says nothing. He just smiles quietly to himself.

D.D.