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.
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