When you grow up in a small town, everything is conveniently packed into one location, so travel time and destination are often irrelevant conversation pieces. Even at my young age, I knew these routine trips ended in one of two places, either the Dairy Queen where I was promised we were going, or the Laundromat where I knew we shouldn’t be going.

Most of the time, I didn’t get ice-cream. My grandfather would take a deep breathe, look over at me, and tell me he needed to stop in at the laundromat to see his friend, Buddy, for a minute.