ometimes, Dirk thinks, as he sits in his kitchen with William, both of them waiting for Scott to return from his late night laundry adventure, sometimes it seems as though every time Scott comes to Cincinnati he brings a car full of laundry with him. Why is that?
 
He ponders raising the issue with William but decides against it. There had been way too much pseudo-Freudian chin-stroking going on lately. Why Scott couldn't seem to manage to wash his clothes in his home city but instead felt compelled to spend his time and money in laundromats hundreds of miles away would simply have to remain an ineffable ritual, best explained in some journal dedicated to human oddities. It was a unique way of packing, however. Instead of fussing over what to bring and trying to figure out the fewest number of clothes necessary to cover the largest number of possible contingencies, just throw a pile of dirty laundry in the back seat and drive off. Wash what you need, when you need it.
 
You know how some people take theme vacations, like visiting all the Tiki bars in a given state, comparing the paper umbrellas and the size of their fruit slices? What if Scott is onto a new travel trend: laundry vacations? Or better yet, Official Unknown Laundry Vacations. Imagine this banner ad on a website near you: Bored? Run out of clean underwear and worn the same pair of socks for three days? No problem! Let's party! Join Scott Rettberg for the First Annual Unknown Laundry Vacation. That's right, now you can hobnob with a major hypertext celebrity while he does his laundry in cities all over America. Watch him carefully measure his soap, select the proper water temperature, and insert his quarters. Learn his truly useful drying techniques and witness his deft lint removal. Buy him a beer. Or beers. Dinner would be nice, too. Have I told you about Electronic Literature . . . . .

Nah. Scott would never agree to commercializing the Unknown in such a crass manner. Though William might, Dirk thought with a shudder.
 
And that's what made Dirk so nervous about Scott and William's trip to Atlanta.

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