This is a dad joke masquerading as a blog post

And every word of it is true

My mom and I were staying in a very posh hotel in Cambridge. They seemed to have thought of everything, and were especially good at details great and small that tied them to this ancient and historic town.

After breakfast one morning, I visited the Men’s Room in the lobby before heading out for some sight-seeing.

As I was washing my hands, I became aware of a man’s voice, speaking quietly and methodically. At first I thought it was someone in one of the stalls talking on his cell phone.

You’d be surprised how often one hears this in a Men’s Room. (And do you suppose the person on the other end of the line has any idea what is going on?)

But then, listening a bit closer, I realized that the style of speaking wasn’t a conversation so much as a narration. After a moment I realized that this faint, disembodied voice was actually coming from the bathroom’s sound system. It was someone narrating a story.

I listened further and after a minute or so, ascertained that it was a recording of a velvet-voiced Englishman quietly reading from Winnie the Pooh.

Well that was unexpected.

But then it wasn’t.

It made sense once I remembered that A. A. Milne, the author of the Winnie the Pooh books, had been a famous Cambridge man. This was just one more clever hotel design detail.

My mother was waiting for me outside the Men’s Room and she commented on the voice when I came out.

“What was that?” She asked.

And thanking the heavens for such a perfect opening, I replied simply:

“Apparently the hotel has put a soft Pooh in the Men’s Room.”

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