At first Melinda was surprised that the homeless man who sleeps in the hallway on the third floor volunteered for her Phenomenology of Lint project. Then she realized it was a way for him to get his clothes cleaned. Not authorized to use the laundry room himself, Melinda volunteered to wash and dry the man's clothes. She also slipped him some cash before they sat down in her apartment to do the oral history. Sitting across from her, now in clean clothes and freshly washed hair (she let him use her shower), Melinda saw the man for the first time. He wasn't just the homeless man who sneaks into the building after hours most nights when its cold and sneaks out before most people leave for work in the morning, he was actually a rather interesting looking man with olive colored eyes, a fine long nose and a sweet laugh that bubbled up out of nowhere and made her small, sparsely furnished apartment feel warm and not so claustrophobic. Norman had been a professional man; he's got three kids out in the world somewhere and an ex-wife who's remarried; and his twin brother died not too long ago that was the hardest loss of all. It only took one or two follow-up questions before it came out that Norman sleeps outside the apartment that the smelly man used to live in because the smelly man whose name was Leonard, was his twin brother. After Norman said good bye and thanked her for everything especially the good conversation, and she thanked Norman for his generosity in sharing his story and his lint, Melinda closed the door and began to wonder about all the stories of her students who she never has the time to really get to know, and the stories of the janitors in the Social Science building at the university, and the shopkeepers at the stores she frequents, and the token booth workers and the people who work at the Duane Reade and all the other homeless people she steps over or steers clear of going to and from the Gothamberg every day. Melinda, lint, sleeping man