I wasn’t making kissie-faces at the guy.
I just happened to be whistling as I got out of my truck and ended up face to face with him, separated only by his rolled up window.
I’m a knee-jerk whistler. I often whistle without realizing I’m whistling – pop songs, dog-food jingles, my own compositions, mimicking the sound of the UPS truck’s backing alarm – it just happens.
People always say “you’re certainly in a good mood” when they hear me, not realizing that, while my lips and lungs are pursed over a sprightly little ditty, my heart, brain, and stomach may be in a wrestling match over who gets to claim the title: “blackest organ of the hour.” It’s not mood, it’s reflex.
Of course, some people don’t like whistling.
In grade school, I visited a friend’s house and received one warning at the door: “Whatever you do, don’t whistle. My dad hates whistling.” Tony’s dad was a stern, muscled, construction type whose time at home, near as I could tell, was spent equally divided between stomping and glaring. Having an easily angered father myself, I took the warning to heart.
Well, eventually we sat down to a game of chess. Chess often involves long stretches of time in between moves in which you can either concentrate on your game or sit and lose. I was one of the latter and, eventually, started in to whistling.
“Who the hell is whistling down there?” came the father’s angry shout.
I almost broke two teeth trying to pull that sound back down into my chest.
I now know that “I don’t like whistling” is short hand for “I can’t whistle.” Try it out. If you meet someone who says they don’t like whistling, ask if they can whistle. Nine times out of ten they can’t. It’s not that they don’t like whistling, it’s that they don’t like being reminded of something they can’t do, whether they want to or not.
So, as you can see, I really wasn’t making kissie-faces at the guy.
As I said, I just happened to be whistling as I got out of my truck and ended up face to face with him through his car window.
It’s no wonder he couldn’t hear me whistling, what with his stereo on as loud as: “BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!” That pile-driver sound that passes for music with some folks.
If I was gonna hit on someone in a parking lot, someone I didn’t know, it’d be someone with better musical taste, you know? Someone with a lot more soul -and a lot less beard.
But I don’t think, even if I was making kissie-faces (which I sure as hell wasn’t) that he had to glare at me like that and mouth a word, a word that looked suspiciously like ‘faggot,’ before turning away and acting as if I wasn’t there any longer, my song dead on my damn-sure-not-trying-to-kiss-anyone lips.
I just want my coffee, you know? I just want to get my groceries and my coffee and go home.
