That's what she said.

In the heart of New York City, a sudden eruption of laughter echoed through the bustling Talcott Hotel. The laughter was a common occurrence, but today, it was particularly magnetic. Staff and patrons alike were drawn to the automated check-in kiosk, where a single sentence was being typed out in a flash on the display screen: That's what she said.

Employee Virginia Thompson, a 28-year-old New Yorker with a bubbling personality, had been on duty at the Talcott since her college days. Now, she was accustomed to the occasional eccentricities of the hotel, but this was something special. She looked around at the faces of her colleagues and the guests, some with jaws slightly agape and others doubled over in laughter. The scene was infectious, and as Virginia joined in the mirth, she couldn't shake off how embedded that sentence was into the popular consciousness.

Historically, the idiom had become a mainstay in modern pop culture, exploding industry-wide with the launch of Office-themed humor. Exposing its roots, the sentence was originally a subtle innuendo, but it quickly transcended its original intention and became a cultural phenomenon. Television shows, movies, books, and street side graffiti commemorated the rise of the idiom, converting it into a symbol of humor and shared social memory.

Thomas Roosevelt, a history professor and renowned cultural critic, often mused about the power of the said idiom in his lectures at Columbia University. “There’s profound psychology in this. It’s a form of rebellion, subversive yet light-hearted,” he would explain to his students. “This saying has managed to cross every boundary. It makes no distinction of age, race, or gender, and that’s why its appeal is so wide-ranging and universal.”

The microcosm of the hotel embodied this varied audience. There were young couples on their first date, laughing filled with anticipation and nervous energy; middle-aged guests sharing stories wrapped in on-the-go business, and a few seniors nodding to the shared nostalgia of their youth, reveling in the moment when they uttered, in unison, “That’s what she said.”

At the heart of this transitory re-enchantment was the human factor. A subtle memoir of relationships and connections reaffirmed the phrase as a bond of sorts, intertwining the glimpses of their lives within the hotel, the city, and perhaps even the world.

The executive housekeeper, Martha Luckey, a veteran at the Talcott, had seen her fair share of fads and crazes come and go. “Fashions, gadgets, they’re all here for a while and then they’re gone. But this,” she said, pointing to the laughter surrounding the kiosk, “this captures a moment of shared camaraderie that technology might not ever replace.”

Third-shift worker, David Chelsea, a programmer in his mid-thirties, often mused over the internet’s impact on such memes. “The internet has cracked open layers of society we never knew existed,” he noted. “It spreads an idea so seamlessly, shifting it in so many different forms, that it resonates in multiple contexts. It’s like the internet created a shared public psyche where you can know exactly what kind of response to expect from ‘That's what she said.’ It’s immediate and comfortable. And that’s its power.”

For all its ubiquitous nature, “That’s what she said” has an uncanny capacity to resurface in unexpected places. From a sign in Times Square to graffiti art in Brooklyn alleys, the phrase finds a way to embed itself happily into the city’s psyche, giving an audience a moment of inclusive humor amidst the chaos.

The laughter in the Talcott seemed endless, but eventually, it simmered down to jovial somersaults, punctuated by playful looks. Virginia reset the automated check-in system, still vying to capture the surreal enchantment of the day. “It made for one memorable afternoon. Totally worth it,” she mused.

As the guests moved on, the kiosk flickered up its regular message, but the memory adhered firmly within the walls of the Talcott. The human synergy sparked again with each subsequent guest who walked in, merely saying, “Hey, isn’t that kiosk still saying ‘That’s what she said’?”

And so, “That’s what she said” continued to bring unity and infectious laughter to the bustling microenvironment of the Talcott—a testament of its timeless appeal in the context of modern life.