A character leaves the usual setting, and is worried that things will fall apart without him or her around. When the character finds out that things are just fine, they feel useless and unneeded.
In fact, any number of crises have occurred, and a massive cover-up operation has taken place to keep the character from worrying about the home situation.
Compare
Achilles In His Tent,
Holding Out For A Hero, and
Vetinari Paradox.
Examples:
- The Andy Griffith Show, "Andy and Opie Housekeepers": Aunt Bee leaves the boys to mind the house, which is in ruins within hours, but a friend cleans the house before Aunt Bee gets back. Aunt Bee mopes until Andy has Opie recreate the disaster area.
- M*A*S*H did this in the episode "The Young and the Restless." Potter's phlebitis forces him to stay in bed, while a new, young surgeon shows everybody up. When Radar assures him that they don't need him at all, he feels sorry for himself until a crabfest against Charles snaps him out of it.
- The Dick Van Dyke Show also went through this in the first season episode "The Meershatz Pipe."
- In Robert Asprin's Hit or Myth, the protagonist's mentor is MIA for the first half of the book. Upon returning, he discovers that his student has resolved all his problems by himself and feels upset and useless...but he gets over it pretty quickly when loose ends start appearing.
- In The Fairly Oddparents, Wanda returns from vacation and is delighted to discover that in her absence, Timmy and Cosmo nearly allowed the world to end, and covered it up (unsuccessfully!) in order to make sure she had a good time.
- Done in an episode of The Simpsons, where Mr. Burns wants Bart to stay with him forever. He shows Bart a video that's allegedly a surveillance video of the house, where the family is sitting on the couch acting wooden. They're actually bad actors, and one of them messes up Homer's trademark "D'oh!".
- Subverted in Malcolm in the Middle. After spending hours cleaning up the house after learning (they think) that Francis will be allowed to come home if they don't mess up their time spent alone in the house, the kids realize their parents will never believe it and proceed to make things messier than they were before.
