Seems perfectly reasonable. Perhaps you're watching television and a little wave of sleepiness comes over you, not a problem - just close your eyes and nap. My late grandad Ron would take the universal right to nap in a chair and combine it with the old person's right to not be interested in what you are saying. He would use this combo to devastating effect and fall asleep right in the middle of one of your sentences. But he was a kind and fair man and to prove it he would occasionally fall asleep in the middle of one of his own sentences. This act confirmed his status as a true gent.

Having established Ron as a true gent let us put him into an imaginary scenario.

Please imagine a normal elderly lady lying prone on a busy pavement. Now imagine the approach of a true gent - in this case Ron, a known napper. He stops to enquire as to the lady's wellbeing, assuming of course that something is amiss. He becomes rather bemused when he discovers that the lady is in fact very happy and free of any injury.

Now you probably think nothing unusual of Ron's reaction, but I would like to contradict you for a minute and say that I find his reaction rather curious. You see, the only big difference between a chair and a pavement is that one is a public place and one a private place. Now if the lady had been sleeping on a train (a public place) I wager that Ron would not have made any enquiries as to her wellbeing. And he would be no less of a gent for not doing so. It is simply a case of 'matter out of place'. Imagine a fork on a bed. Imagine a hot cup of tea in a fridge. Imagine a normal, elderly lady sleeping on a sunny pavement. These images feel uneasy. And for no other reason than they grate with our sometimes illogical and generally unspoken social rules and regulations.

So here's to most excellent pensioners sleeping on pavements and teaching us all a valuable lesson.

(I checked - she was fine.)

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