The Whistler

You may not know this about me, but I cannot whistle.

In the same way some people cannot roll their tongues – which, by the way, seems ridiculous – I cannot whistle.

When I was little, I was frustrated by my incapability to whistle. I had it in my head that it was something one could learn to do, like drawing a heart or adding two plus two. And I had certainly learned how to do those things, so learn to whistle I would!

I absolutely hated eating the crust on bread. Looking back, I think it was more superficial than anything; I just didn’t like the way it looked. At some point, my grandma started telling me eating the crust on my bread would help me learn to whistle. Taking her grandmotherly wisdom to heart, I earnestly devoured every bite of bread, crust and all, despite the fact that I was a cut-the-crust-off-my-sandwiches-please kind of girl. But, no matter how much crust I consumed, I still could not whistle! (Maybe this is why I have a carb-complex today.) It took me longer than it probably should have (aka well into my teens) to realize that I was the victim of a grandmotherly ruse.

Now that you know how much I wanted to whistle, you may be surprised to learn that whistling annoys me.

Allow me to clarify.

I don’t hate all whistling. If it’s done to catch someone’s attention or used as a Marco-Polo approach to finding someone in the grocery store, that’s fine. It's also acceptable if you are singing Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

 

However, when someone whistles for long periods of time in otherwise silent spaces, it drives me crazy. I want to scream, "WHY ARE YOU WHISTLING?" What, do these people feel the need to provide a soundtrack to my awesome and otherwise silent movie? Are they trying to spread cheer? I just don't understand. The worst part is, I would feel terribly rude saying, "Will you please stop whistling?"

 

I suppose there's nothing I can do except offer them a sleeve of saltine crackers and hope they accept. You know, to dry up the mouth.