PARDON ME A MOMENT

This is a letter to all the jackasses in the world who inflict their whistling on the rest of humanity.

Dear Jackasses:

Perhaps no one has mentioned this, or perhaps you're too much of a jackass to care, but no one enjoys those shrill sounds you make by forcing air through your puckered lips. You are not adding brightness or joy to the world. You are being annoying. You are not filling our shared space with the sound of music, like the lovely Julie Andrews; you are filling it with noisy distraction, like your annoying self.

Why do you think it's OK to whistle wherever you go? You wouldn't walk into some quiet place and break into a show tune or start jabbering loudly, would you? So why do you think it's all right to form your mouth into a sphincter and make like a bird? Is it just a habit you can't shake, like spitting on the sidewalk or eating your boogers, which I'm sure you also do. Or is it just to fill your empty head with sound? Or is it to announce your presence in case some poor soul hasn't noticed you?

How about this? Try entering a room without whistling your arrival to everyone. Like most human beings, you occupy several square feet of space and move around and breathe and speak and whatnot. You are visible. We will notice you. You don't need to sing like a canary. If you want to make sure your presence doesn't go unnoticed, a simple "hello" will do.

And you especially — the cocky son of a bitch at the university who can't walk through the building without whistling — you're about to get your motherfucking throat ripped out. We'll see how chirpy you feel after I wrestle you to the ground and strangle you with your Goddamn windpipe. You think I'm being extreme. You think the situation can be handled with politeness and civility. But you people don't understand politeness and civility; that's why you whistle in public! Because you don't recognize the right of other people to peaceful coexistence. You are so cocooned in your own chirpy self-regard and vanity that it's impossible to get through to you by any means short of abusive threats or actual physical violence. If I were to politely say to you, "Hey, would you mind? I'm trying to concentrate here," you'd act like I was a killjoy trying to deprive the world of music. You'd go around the corner and say, "What's up her ass?"

I'll tell you what's up my ass, music man. The other day I was sitting in the reading room about 7 a.m., writing a memo, enjoying a very quiet, scholarly atmosphere when you strut in like a banty rooster and figure it'd be a good time to whistle "Oklahoma!" I think it was "Oklahoma!" You weren't that good, though, so I couldn't be sure. You're the same jackass who walks down the hall whistling while my class is in session. Everyone has to turn toward the hall and look. That's annoying enough, but at least it's in passing. The other morning, though, you just endlessly puttered around the room whistling louder and louder as if I weren't 10 feet from you trying to focus. This is the reading room, jackass. The whistling room is somewhere else, like maybe at your house. Try that.

Honestly. Are you totally oblivious? Does it not occur to you that someone hovering over a keyboard in a reading room might be trying to string two thoughts together, might be trying to apply her mind to something for which musical accompaniment is not only unnecessary but is downright unwelcome? Has that never occurred to you?

And that was not an isolated incident. Every time I see you, you're whistling. I can hear you in the hall, coming up the stairs, all throughout the building. In my dreams at night.

And you're not the only one. There is at least one whistler everywhere I am compelled to be. There's no escape.

And part of the reason there's no escape is that you whistlers tend to be old "distinguished" types and not just some kid I can tell to shut the hell up.

I have noticed that most whistlers are men of a certain age — men who grew up in a world where men did whatever they wanted, where they were the head and center of the family, where they made all the decisions, where they got the biggest pork chop at dinner, where their wives greeted them at the end of the working day like they were fucking royalty, where sex ended with their orgasm, where they thrust their presence onto everything, without much regard for the existence of other people, where they bossed everyone around, where every room was just a stage for their whistling performances. (I could go on, but I'll stop before I overgeneralize.)

Indeed, there would be consequences for telling you to shut up. So I won't risk it in person.

But if you happen to read this, jackass, unless you can blow as well as the four dudes below, and maybe even then, do the world a favor and shut the fuck up.

Sincerely,
KC