Before anyone had hung a single sock, the porch already held a polite little line of light, each beam clutching a paper slip no wider than a clothespin.
We asked at the kiosk. "They used to dry the whole wash at once," said the laundry keeper, counting tickets with a wooden peg. "Now a sunbeam shows its number, nods to the clip, and only then does a sock get warm."
A note in the guest book asked visitors not to shake the line; the queue was still finding its places.
The next morning the first beam arrived early with its ticket already sun-soft at the corner, as if it had practiced waiting behind the roof all night.