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02/04/2004: "Exposure"
A notable case of exposure occured the other night, and almost everybody has been talking about it ever since. I didn't see it, myself, at least not the first time around, but it has rattled around in my brain ever since. We tend to forget, I think, that physical modesty is not only an artifice but also a luxury. It doesn't take much to make that luxury too costly to keep -- have a stroke and you may well find that going to the bathroom has become a social affair. I'm not sure what happened the other night; the celebrity may have been mortified but she sure didn't die. However, not very long ago, an elderly lady, who suffered from gently advancing dementia, stepped out of her house in the night and became disoriented, and she did die. Of exposure.
