Let's face it, there are few things more depressing than watching your own garments spinning in the dryer in the laundromat on a rainy Sunday afternoon. So it was pretty much inevitable that some company would eventually push wireless LAN Internet access as a means of alleviating the boredom.

San Francisco-based Serynade Inc. wants to sell the 35,000-plus coin-op laundromats in the U.S. an 802.11 hotspot [ed. note: sudspot?] package so that their customers can surf while they wash. The company says 89 million people in the U.S. use the coin-ops. These poor, misbegotten souls visit the laundromat two or three times a month and spend 90 gawdawful minutes there .

Serynade's soapy bundle includes an access point controller and billing and management software. The company says it will also provide full-time support and maintenance and marketing materials to let bemused patrons know that they can now bring their laptop to the laundry, along with their fabric softener.

Sadly, the Serynade laundromat hotspot is not itself coin-operated (and it is best not to tip soap powder in there either). A spokesperson for the company says that users will instead be charged $2.95 per hour and $5.95 for up to 12 hours access.

Which raises the question: Who on Earth is going to spend 12 hours in the laundromat?

— Dan Jones, Senior Editor, Unstrung