One of my number-one pet hates: whistling. I hate it. I’ve always hated it with an unreasonable white-hot hatred. I don’t know why. My father used to whistle all the time, and he was good at it, but otherwise we got on fine so it had nothing to do with some conventional psychological father-daughter dysfunction. I hate whistling on tv. I hate whistling in public. I always itch to find the person who is whistling and smack him right in his hokey, smugly pursed lips. Whistling is irritating. Even the word “whistling” is irritating. Don’t you just envision some grinning leprechaun hopping around saying “whist, mon!” And then whistling “Danny Boy.” And then you pop him in a cauldron of boiling beef broth, stupid green shoes and all, until he’s rendered down to fat, which you make into soap and sell under the brand name “Irish Spring.”
Okay, the whistling guy has stopped, perhaps because someone walked up and stabbed him through the heart. Not me. You’ll never get me, coppers. I was sitting at my desk typing this at the time of the murder. Bwahahahaah!
6 Responses to “Pet hates”
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November 29th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I’m right there with you. The sound of whistling literally puts me into a violent rage.
Two of my coworkers–one of whom is my immediate supervisor–whistle tunelessly off and on for no reason. Thank God for iTunes radio and earphones, is all I have to say about that.
November 29th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I hate whistling too; in a very visceral passionate way. I’m not sure why either – and my father would whistle when I wss a kid but I swear, just like you, that’s NOT why I hate whistling. Maybe the whistling frequency “hits” my rage circuits just so. I have to leave the area if someone’s whistling and if I can’t distract them with a question, there’s going to be trouble.
I also don’t like – I hope that I don’t appear to have a list of “stuff I don’t like” ’cause I don’t really, being a little too laid-back – people tapping their feet, twitching little rhythms on the floor or the back of my chair. In high school, these rather innocuous kid would absent mindedly tap on the back of my desk and after asking him several times to stop, I got up and flipped him and his chair over. I was taken out of class and transferred but it was worth it.
November 30th, 2008 at 7:14 am
I feel obliged, as a someone who occasionally likes to whistle, to defend us, ha, at least tentatively; will grant that there are out of tune and incessant and otherwise imperfect and thus obnoxious whistlers out there.
Those of us who do it well ought to be recognised as the artists we are, ha, by right-thinking people.
(Any government subsidies available, I wonder? hmm.)
December 27th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
OMG. A kindred spirit! My dad was an amazing whistler also. He did this whirring sort of whistling that sounded like a space ship was about to land. He could also whistle just like a “Piccalo Pete” on the 4th of July.
One of the things I’ve noticed, the whistling usually belongs to some older guy and if they don’t whistle they jingle their keys, which is almost as annoying if you ask me.
Love your site. Found you through Rachel Lucas. Looking forward to reading your stuff. You’re quite a talented writer. I hope you are attempting to make your living through writing. =o)
December 27th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Well thanks! π
December 28th, 2008 at 8:14 am
(Feed readers are wonderful things, in their way. )
For the record, while I may occasionally jingle my keys, there is no correlation between that action and my (also occasional) whistling.
This post of AH’s having provoked conversations in the workplace, I will add that, alas, the overwhelming majority of employees here also detest whistlers’ whistling.