Two out of three

When I was in Berlin recently, I stayed at a Radisson hotel, which—in addition to the gigantic aquarium in the atrium—had a spa and a pool somewhere on the level below the lobby. A few times during my stay, I rode the elevator down with someone wrapped in one of the white terrycloth guest bathrobes, who was headed for either the spa or the pool. It’s a little disconcerting, tbh, to get on one of those glass fishbowl jobbers and find it’s occupied by a substantial guy in a bathrobe.

I got on one time with just such a bloke. Because the elevators at work don’t have keys inside the cars—you input your floor on a keypad outside and an algorithm sends up JIT elevator—I often get into strange elevators and forget to punch a destination floor. Anyway, this happened with Robe Guy. He noticed my confusion at having gone a floor too far and said I could check out the spa (or maybe it was the pool), but I declined.

Anyhow, another time a mother and what I took to be her two sons—about 9 or 10 years old—were clearly headed to the pool. I know this because the boys were completely engulfed in terrycloth robes, which practically swept the floor. They reminded me of kids dressed up as the Three Kings in Christmas pageants. (I wanted to get a photo of them, but reckoned that would be creepy.)

So, in honor of two of the wise men in Berlin, let’s have “We Three Kings”, sung by a children’s choir for today’s Advent piece. It’s not really jumping the gun, since those Magi must have been on the road for some time before they got to Bethlehem; it’s legit.