No woman will admit she snores sufficient to rattle the windows. So men, who understand delicacy, pretend to accept that officially women don't.
When the ladies snuffle, gurgle, neigh and whinny, the safest choice is getting up for a Scotch with Sky sport.
I know we might be more proactive - in fact, some self-help book suggests administering the spouse a brisk tap on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. But while this seems common sense, it may also be a way to end your days in a wheelchair.
Ever since womankind renounced the Non Aggression Pact in about 1975, they've been forthright in detailing their spouse's snoring. And because most men don't sleep much with other men, we're ill-equipped to judge if we are fairly accused.
I'm given the chance whenever the "Dad's Navy" fishing group sets out on its annual expedition. Our flotilla of boats, 4WDs, and gentlemen of a certain age gathers at Frankton where it is farewelled by wives and girlfriends keen to see proof it has left. Kitbags are loaded, quartermaster Pat scurries to complete provisioning, the admirable Admiral Ken toots his hooter, and the Queenstown Expeditionary Force blunders forth.
The fleet quarters itself in cheap motels, and faces tense bloke moments while it is decided who rooms with whom. This year I drew Mal, a learned fellow I know well.
"Mate - you snored last night," he said to my astonishment, at breakfast. "So bad I had to take a sleeping pill." Me?
The next evening Mal was in bed asleep by the time I arrived back. I scrubbed the teeth, took the potions, and retired for the sleep of the just.
It was then that, from across the room, Mal began his performance. It was Purcell's Trumpet Voluntary if I'm not mistaken, pure and piercing, with all the signature trills. After several encores he considered his repertoire, changed gears, and moved to a steady chugging splutter, rather like a row of tractors bringing in the harvest. It became clear the concert was an all-nighter.
There was no rolled up newspaper handy, and to cross the room and shake his shoulder might prove embarrassing. A bloke who is half asleep will likely stir and mumble "Sorry dear," or worse, "But sweetheart, you said you had a headache." I abandoned the room, got in the car, and reclined the front seat. It was like flying in economy class - you doze fitfully, and possibly dream the hostie's come to tuck you in.
But if Dad's Navy is as noisy as this, how must it have been in Lord Nelson's time?
If you've been to Plymouth and walked the lower decks of Nelson's flagship HMS Victory, you quickly spot the problem. Each night, sleeping in rows of hammocks slung so close they'd offend battery hens, 800 sailors snored for England. Gun crews were deafened before they fired a shot.
The Royal Navy's personnel office manned Victory by press-ganging unfortunates found in their way.
Thus, many started as what could be called "incompetees" - sailors as equipped to climb the rigging as a tinker on crutches. About a quarter of Dad's Navy also falls into this incompetee class.
Myself, while I mastered the reef knot at Wolf Cubs, and can row a dinghy in a tidy circle, the fact is I'm as useful on board as the ship's cat.
The safest place the skipper can station the incompetee is astride the head, but Dad's Navy is relaxed and I sit out the back, trailing lines for reluctant trout, and idly pondering life's larger questions. Are my feet really shrinking, and would this be treatable?
If we are what we eat, might baked beans at breakfast improve my golf? Do I snore as loudly as Mal?
On the second morning, we edged our skipper's boat down the ramp, launched it, and walked towards the jetty for the pick-up. Two minutes later, a raft of obscenities drifted across the lake. Our skipper had left a vacancy in the bunghole, and sinking fast, he'd beached his boat.
Captain Wozza is a competent boatman, good bloke, and a distinguished snorer. But as the sinking skipper blackened the air, he received no sympathy whatever.
In fact, the incompetees of the fleet watched joyously, because for one fleeting moment it was us who could point the finger. Wonderfully, really.
Wozza can now snore any time he likes.
• John Lapsley is an Arrowtown writer.
