I Hate the Seven Dwarfs

I hate Disney’s Seven Dwarfs, but Snow White is fine by me. It’s not their creepily high pitched voices or their small hands (which I imagine to smell like cabbage). I hate them because of their four minute “Whistle While You Work” performance. I don’t know why or when my irritation with whistling began, but the sound irks me to no end.

Almost all whistling bothers me. I’m talking about the sound that someone makes with their mouth, not an actual whistle. When people whistle in public I feel they are invading my auditory space. As a female, the ever-so-flattering (note the heavy sarcasm) cat call is absurd. The worst of all are wolf-whistles, really drunk people do them at sporting events and concerts. The only whistling I can tolerate is when someone is calling their dog to come.

In high school, I competed in horse shows. It’s a physically demanding sport with 6 a.m. practices and fifteen hour days. During a horse show, my day would begin at 3:30 in the morning and I would be at the barn by 4:30. No matter how much coffee I drank, I would never fully wake before 9:30.

But every morning of every show, without fail, a parent of one of my team members would stroll into the barn with his topsiders and some happy-show-tune-esque whistle. Just imagine the beginning of a stressful day on seven hours of nervous sleep, and then hearing an annoying up-beat shrill sound to go with your greasy sausage and egg biscuit from the on-site caterer.

Just yesterday I was out to lunch with a friend. We were walking down Front Street, and a truck full of construction workers found it appropriate to whistle and holler at us. I react the same way each time I get a cat call, I take a stern tone (like you would take with a puppy that has just piddled in the house) and say “NO!” very loudly. If I am treated like a mindless animal that would react obediently to a whistle, the person whistling will be treated in the same way. It’s a situation that you can do something about, whereas the drunken person behind you at a concert screaming and whistling is a bit more difficult to deal with.

At a bluegrass festival over the summer, I was sandwiched between a couple that felt it unnecessary to wear deodorant and a frat boy that had pounded too many beers. This upstanding member of the university’s Greek community couldn’t help from showing his excitement with a string of “wooohooos” and extremely loud whistles. The whistle that requires you to put two fingers in your mouth and rupture the ear drums of those around you. Instead of chancing a run-in with ’07 Summer Beer Pong Champ, I shimmied my way to the other side of the stage and enjoyed the rest of the show.

Anywhere I am, the line at the grocery, checking someone out at work, or the beach, whistling makes me want to throw things. The actual sound is offensive to me. It could be worse. Hawking loogies and picking noses could be more socially acceptable.