Nobody Is ‘nobody’

A woman rode down a hotel elevator on a day when the Press crowded the lobby, waiting for Elizabeth Taylor to come out of her suite. The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and the woman was instantly greeted by a burst of camera flash bulbs. Whereupon, the woman instinctively put her head down and her hands over her face. “There she is!” someone yelled. But when she lifted her head up a photographer said in a loud voice, “Forget it. It’s nobody.”

More often than not in our culture, being somebody means being rich and famous. Or, at the very least, being very athletic or very entertaining or very talented or very good looking. By those standards I suppose most of us would be regarded as nobodies. Or, as the author of this little lament puts it…

This one has money,
Another has wit.

That one is handsome,
till another is fit.

This one can sing well,
is…