Kill the Whistler (a holiday essay)

I originally wrote this essay for a charity holiday book that never got off the ground. I might be able to sell it somewhere, sometime … if the way-ahead-of-schedule life of holiday pieces ever sinks in. But, for now, I’ll take a break from our usual Friday training updates and do my best to entertain you with my own brand of holiday charm. This essay is based on actual events from a couple years ago.

Kill the
Whistler

By
Roxanne Hawn

I left
the house with the best intentions. Take deep breaths, smile, relax and get the
shopping done. Normally, I never attempt holiday grocery shopping on a
Saturday. But, back-to-back blizzards shut everything down. When the
highways finally opened, roads and stores clogged with people behind on their
holiday errands.

I
breathed. I smiled. I was polite to other drivers on the roads and other
shoppers in the food warehouse. Inching along with our SUV-sized carts, we
loaded up with holiday must-haves in bulk because 1) people eat a lot over the
holidays and 2) we’d just survived days of cabin fever. The compulsion to
stock-up ran roughshod over common sense.

Ten
pounds of summer sausage for $2? Super.

Five
aisles in, and I held my own. Bickering in-laws? Ha. Screaming child? Whatever.
While not exactly oozing holiday charm, I remained committed to my promise of
calm.

And, then
I heard it, approaching from behind, with the subtlety of a three-year-old
playing the tambourine. Whistling. Someone was whistling Christmas tunes at a
volume that pierced the din of the crowd and overran the pa-rum-pa-pum-pum of
the piped-in music.

Here’s
the thing: Excess noise in public sets me off. I already suffer from chronic
perseveration. It’s a fancy word that means getting a song stuck in your head.
But, I also use the term for all the mental noise that loops through my brain
24/7. It’s already plenty noisy in there. Seriously, they should have a
telethon for people like me. It’s an affliction, I tell you.

So, an
unauthorized upload of cheesy tunes into my MP3 of a noggin provoked a strong,
entirely negative response. That first piercing note sent me into overload just
like car stereos that blare eardrum-crushing bass. All my synapses fired. My
blood pressure rose. My heart raced. With no room in the crowd for flight, I took
a one-way trip to fight-city, where purveyors of pissed-off were having a sale
on anger. And, baby, I was buying.

I had
only one thought: Kill the whistler.

Trapped
by the crowds, no passing lane in sight, I suffered. I shuffled along aisle
after aisle and endured tune after tune of merry music – “Rudolf” near the
razors, “Winter Wonderland” next to the waffles, “White Christmas” juxtaposed
with juice. Each time a song ended, I hoped it would be his last — as in “Tragic forklift accident claims life of holiday shopper.”

I found
no such relief. This musical genius had an enviable repertoire, and I simply
couldn’t take it.

Surely, I
thought, he is one of those Santa-like old coots — elves in the front yard,
blinking ties, striped suspenders, the works. I pegged him as the kind of guy
who grew his beard scary long on purpose and relished being mistaken …

“Hey,
mister. Are you Santa?”

“Ho, ho,
ho. Merry Christmas, little fella. Can you keep a secret?”

Idiot.

Somewhere
near the milk, eggs and cheese, the carts behind me went straight instead of
turning, leaving my back exposed. The whistling got louder the closer he came.
I had no idea down coats provided that much noise abatement until my blockers,
my baffles, took a different path.

The
closer he came the more enraged I got. I started looking for weapons — creamed
corn, a football, a price gun. How much damage could a well-thrown juice box
do? I wondered.

As I reached
in to grab some skim milk, “Santa Clause is Coming to Town” echoed inside the
cooler, and I realized my prey stood close. I spun around with the lithe
movement of cheetah in her winter woolies and came face to face with the
puckered offender.

There was
no Santa, no oblivious old fart, deaf to his own music but filled with the
holiday spirit. Instead, Whistley McWhistleson looked barely 30. And, he was
cute. How can someone so annoying be that cute? Like hotshot news anchor meets heartthrob,
romantic comedy dude.

Our eyes
met. A few seconds passed.

My breath
hung in the freezer’s air. My arms ached from the weight of the milk.

Then, it
hit me. I bet this guy has a new baby. It’s Dad’s First Christmas, and he braved
the grocery-starved crowds for his recuperating and sleep-deprived wife. She
wrote the list. He ventured out. Heck, she probably gave birth in a snow drift,
and I missed it on the local news. Those stories always make me cry.

Reining
in the psycho-holiday-shopper inside me, I relaxed. Rather than become the Rude
Lady at the store, which is a cliche all its own, I forgave his annoying habit.
I mustered a modicum of holiday cheer. I did not whistle along, but I did not start
a fight. I did not say a word. I did not stuff string cheese up his nose. I
merely nodded to acknowledge his presence.

He smiled
at me and continued whistling.