The cure for the scriptless aged is permission but they seldom use it.  There are thousands of older men living in small rooms in every large city, each of them wishing there was someone to cook for him, talk to him, and listen to him.  At the same time, there are thousands of older women living under the same circumstances, wishing they had someone to cook for, talk to, and listen to.  Even if the twain do happen to meet, they rarely take advantage of it, each preferring to remain in his or her familiar drab surroundings hunched over a glass or a TV set, or sitting with folded hands, waiting for a riskless, sinless death.  Those were mother's directives when they were little, and these are the directive they are following seventy or eighty years later.

• old age
• permission
• transactional analysis
• circumstances
• death
• time