OMG, I overheard the weirdest question. It was a LOT.
The Soap Riddle That Wasn’t
I was about to check into a hotel, dragging myself toward the front desk, exhausted and desperate to lie down. I noticed a middle-aged woman (I write that as though at age 50 I am not in her bracket) heading in the same direction. There was only one employee behind the front desk. I sensed the looming showdown. I had traveled. I had earned this. I needed to be first.
This woman didn’t have a suitcase. She wasn’t checking in. She was clearly already a guest, settled. She was floating around without a care in the world, giving, “I’m approaching to ask a pointless question that will waste everyone’s time,” energy.
Like a slow-moving yet unstoppable force, she arrived first at the front desk, oblivious to the fact that I deserved to be there first.
Before I tell you the most delightfully insane conversation between her and the concierge that I overheard, let me explain this hotel: The Liberty Hotel in Boston was originally the Charles Street Jail, built in 1851. It was designed by a top architect AND a reverend dedicated to prison reform. The jail’s design was progressive for its time, with features like natural light and ventilation. Some fun jailbirds that served time there include:
Members of the National Woman’s Party: After refusing to pay a $5 fine for protesting President Wilson’s visit to Boston, they all served eight days.
Nicola Sacco & Bartolomeo Vanzetti: Italian anarchists held before their execution in 1927.
Mobster Whitey Bulger: Infamous Boston mob boss.
Now? The jail’s been flipped into a trendy hotel where the restaurant is named Clink, the bar is called Alibi, and the old cells are part of the decor. The vibe is surprisingly not traumatic.
So, before I tell you the question, I have to preface one more time with one more thing.
The hand soap in the bathrooms at this hotel is lovely. A boxed bar soap that sits in a simple and chic, white dish—maybe ceramic, something CB2-ish. It’s not one of those practical plastic dishes with a drain; it’s the kind of dish that could hold trinkets, jewelry, or even just sit on a dresser looking stylish. But here, it’s a soap dish—elevated.
Okay, back to the woman and her bizarre question(s).
So, the woman at the front desk says, “I have a question about the soap in the rooms.”
The concierge smiles politely. “Sure, what’s your question?”
“Well, my soap is stuck in the soap dish.”
The concierge pauses. “Stuck?”
“Yes! I opened the box, used the soap, got it all wet and sudsy, and when I put it back in the dish, it dried there. And now it’s stuck. I’ve pulled and pulled, and it won’t come out! I didn’t want to break the dish and then I thought, ‘Ohhhh, I get it. This is a trick!’ Like those gag birthday candles that don't blow out!”
The concierge doesn’t even blink. She also seems to be stunned into silence. Until she stammers, “A…trick? Trick…soap?”
“You know, because it’s a jail-themed hotel,” the woman said. “I thought maybe it was a thing they used to do to prisoners—to mess with their minds. Make the soap stick and see how they react. And I didn’t want to break the dish and get fined.”
The concierge tries desperately to solve this, “Do you need new soap?”
The woman laughs. “Oh, no. No. I’m sure when I least expect it, it will get unstuck. Unless this is a riddle that I’m supposed to solve?”
The concierge is smiling the strained smile of someone who can’t wait to be alone so she can laugh, or cry. “No, ma’am. There’s no riddle.”
The woman leans in, lowering her voice conspiratorially but still loud enough for me to hear, thank God. “I just didn’t know if the riddle was that I’m supposed to put the soap dish in the shower to try to get it unstuck. Like, if this was a joke about not dropping the soap in the shower in jail. But that’s so nasty, I won’t get into that!”
I am so thoroughly confused by how stuck this soap is - I want to go to her room and figure this out and nothing she is describing is a riddle and, just, what? I can’t even write this because I’m so confused.
The concierge kept things super profesh and let out a reflexive chuckle, the kind usually reserved for men who try to talk to women when they’re reading alone at a bar. “No, ma’am, no connection there. That I know of!”
The woman nodded and said that she was heading back to her room with a new commitment to getting this soap unstuck, now that she knew this whole thing wasn’t an elaborate riddle.
I stepped up, fully expecting the concierge to crack a barely perceptible smile, something to acknowledge the absolute absurdity we’d both just witnessed. Nope. I just got a matter-of-fact, “Checking in?” Like nothing had happened.
I wasn’t mad at the woman who low-key cut in front of me with her soap mystery. She was living her truth. What pisses me off is this hotel employee treating me with unflappable professionalism. She didn’t give me the satisfaction of a knowing look, or even a raised eyebrow. She was just doing her job, but she was in dereliction of her duty as a human being.
She chose ignorance over the chance to bond over the ridiculousness of other people. It’s not refurbished jails with punny restaurant names that make life worth living - it’s the shared “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” moments. As we hurtle towards human extinction under the rule of about five psycho billionaires, we need these absurd little personal connections. Let’s not lose that. Without it, what’s left? Endless, humorless professionalism? That’s no way to live.
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