among the padded walls

"'You need to be locked in a room with padded walls.'"

"To this day, that's what my mother playfully tells me when something I say or do strikes her as silly. The padded walls are a clear reference to a mental institution, which I find uproariously ironic, because although I've never seen the inside of an inpatient health facility, I've worked in more than my fair share of corporate American cubicles, most of which are comprised of three and a half walls upholstered in drab gray fabric padding"

... how congruent ...