The Soap Opera

( words)

THE SOAP OPERA
A Tale of Hotel Hospitality
It began with a bar of soap. It ended with 54.
A hotel guest named S. Berman had a simple request. He had brought his own soap and had no need for the little bars supplied by the hotel.
He left a polite note for the chambermaid.
“Dear Maid, please do not leave any more soap in my bathroom. I have brought my own. Thank you.”
The following day, three new bars appeared.
He wrote another note.
“Dear Maid, I asked you not to leave any more soap. There are now six bars in my bathroom. I only need my own.”
A reply arrived from another chambermaid.
“Dear Sir, your regular maid had the day off. I removed the unwanted soap, but replaced it with the three fresh bars required under hotel regulations.”
There were now nine.
The guest complained to the housekeeper.
The housekeeper ordered all the soap to be removed.
Unfortunately, this included the guest’s personal bar.
“Dear Housekeeper, I appreciate your efforts, but you have taken my own soap. I now have nothing to wash with.”
The assistant manager intervened. He apologised and instructed the staff to ensure that the guest would never again be short of soap.
The next morning, the bathroom contained 18 bars.
Another chambermaid arrived, noticed that the usual daily allocation had not been provided, and added three more.
By now, the guest had abandoned any hope of resolving the matter through polite requests.
He began counting.
There were bars on the washbasin, beside the bath, in the soap dishes and on the bathroom shelf.
Eventually, the collection reached 54.
His final note was a masterpiece of resignation.
“Dear Housekeeper, I have now arranged the soap according to size and location. There is no longer sufficient space in the bathroom. Should you feel obliged to deliver any more, I suggest placing them on the windowsill. Yours sincerely, S. Berman.”
And so a simple request for less service produced more service than any guest could possibly need.
In a hotel, nothing is quite so difficult as persuading the staff to stop being helpful.

Based on “The Hotel Soap Letters”, also known as “The Saga of Hotel Soap”, attributed to American comedian Shelley Berman. Adapted retelling, not the original correspondence.