"We need to recognize that the bad old days are coming back and not fall asleep at the switch" he said.

The way not to fall asleep at the switch is to take naps when you need them.

"Sadly, the country is still paying for the last time the regulators fell asleep at the switch."

To the extent that anyone has fallen asleep at the switch, it's the people."

Or he falls asleep at the switch, and poof!

"I just fell asleep at the switch," Torre said.

"Somebody fell asleep at the switch here."

But environmentalists warn of the continuing danger of falling asleep at the switch, as Alaska did.

A boxing writer at the event said it was received wisdom that too many American fighters went soft and "fell asleep at the switch."

"I think we fell asleep at the switch at the same time," he added, taking the onus off his caddie, Brian Deasy.

Several Embarrassments Friends and even critics of Mr. Garrett say he is too smart and industrious simply to fall asleep at the switch.

He is warned by the station master, Sam (a representation of Uncle Sam), not to fall asleep at the switch as he did in November 1942.

In a later interview, he insisted that Republicans had not sought retribution but that Westchester's new senator, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and her Democratic colleagues "fell asleep at the switch."

You're working with a new screener who falls asleep at the switch just when you remember something you heard once about how to make brain viruses, and a Weaver possesses the man you're interviewing and kills you on the spot.

"The problem with that is that the seller's lawyer sometimes falls asleep at the switch," Mr. Hall said, explaining that in such a case, and with such a clause, the contract will remain in force until one of the parties actually cancels it.

Evan Thomas, the Washington bureau chief for Newsweek, said "an adversarial relationship between the White House and the press is a good thing, because if the press falls asleep at the switch, what you get is the Bay of Pigs, Joe McCarthy, Vietnam."

Joe must then decide whether to listen to the influence of a cigar smoking gnome-like Dewey supporter and wrecker who tries to make him fall asleep at the switch, or to fight his influence and make sure that the FDR "Win the War Special" stays on the track.

"Nintendo fell asleep at the switch and Sega seized the higher ground," said Barbara A. Martino, vice president and group management supervisor of Grey 18 and Under, a unit of Grey Advertising Inc. in New York that specializes in marketing to children and families.