You Ain't Just Whistling, Dixie

I am a whistler-not that you'd know that by reading this collection of ionized ether on a sporadic or even regular, basis. That you do so at all might be a cause of concern for family and friends but don't worry, your secret is safe with me.

The worst part about my whistling is I don't always realize I'm doing it. Just last week, someone shrieked at me to 'pipe down dammit!' while I was whistling what turned out to be Gunter Gabriel's evergreen Ohne moos, nichts los (nothing happens without money). That I was the only person on earth who would have recognized the tune, to include Gunter himself, isn't really the point, nor is it that it's never okay for people in the church's other confessional booth to use that tone of voice. I didn't realize I was whistling under the influence (of being happy). Dammit? In church?

It happened yesterday, too, in a hallway while I was passing through a corridor of cube farms. I hate cubicles and hope whoever invented them died a slow, painful death and was buried in one of them. I always think of them as packing crates for broken dreams and ambitions. Put another way, none of us can see the Chairman of the Board for GM or any other Fortune 500 company working in one. Turns out we can't think of anyone who works in a cube farm; except us, of course, and people like us. Maybe that's why I whistle, because I'm boiling mad about it.

Not sure why I was whistling Solsbury Hill specifically (at least I'm alphabetical, eh?) but I like that song, not that it's ever a requirement or would stop me from whistling. Two different folks doing that askance and aghast look theater made me realize not everything needs to be at maximum volume or velocity.

One of them actually demanded to know 'what do you think you're doing!?!' (maybe there was only one ! now that I think about it). Well, I said, I think I'm whistling but I'm keen to hear what it looks like from where you are. He didn't even attempt a rejoinder-just went right on into another question, 'why are you whistling?' I was tempted to say because humming is silly but decided against that as very slowly more eyes and fish faces were turning towards me.

I don't mind being different. However, I do mind being beaten up for being different and people with no appreciation for good music wouldn't hesitate to thrash me within an inch of my life, or even go metric if they could get closer. Of course, it may well be precisely because they do appreciate music that they'd smack me like a grey haired pinata with a bald spot.

Instead, I explained, I was channeling the ghost of Roger Whittaker, which, because he's not dead is a lot harder to do than it sounds. In this, the summer of Green Lantern and Captain America, I knew better than to tell them I would next attempt I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman. They'd have probably asked Commissioner Gordon to club me like a baby seal.
-bill kenny