The Whistler

I have a great job. I really do. I experience stress like everyone else but I know that the grass doesn't get any greener. However, there are times when I find myself less tolerant of the idiosyncratic behaviour of other people. It has nothing to do with them. They are just being normal people. It is me. I am anal, impatient, high strung and shamefully judgmental. I know this.

For several months, I endured the daily whistling of one of my coworkers. It drove me nuts. He would come in to the office in the morning whistling one of three tunes:

Hi Ho, Hi Ho (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs)

I Wish I Was an Oscar Meyer Weiner

On Top of Old Smokey

I used to sit in my office, hear the first couple of notes and instantaneously want to do him great physical harm. That whistle was like an ice pick being driven right to the center of my brain. A friend at work told me that she thought it was a happy sound and that it didn't bother her at all. Of course, her office was located on the other side of the building so I surmised that her attitude was a result of geography and not mental stability.

Occasionally, when my home life gets overwhelming and I feel myself getting to that scary parent place(the one where I entertain the possibility of sending my kids to live with their father)I will wander out to my garage for some relief. I get into the car, wait for the courtesy light to go off and scream like a banshee. My children are aware of this practice and they know enough to avoid me at these times.

Unfortunately, I do not have a similar outlet at the office so when I got to scary employee place (envisioning my whistling coworker with no lips), I would have to close my door, turn on my iPod and go to my happy place. After several months of this, I would just have to catch a glimpse of him out of my eye and immediately, my blood pressure would rise. He didn't even have to whistle. He hacked me off just by showing up.

Then, the whistler got sick- really sick. He was given pretty crappy odds. He had a couple of surgeries, followed by weeks of chemo and radiation treatments. He would try to come into the office and work for a few hours. He didn't whistle once, not even a small chirp, the entire time he was sick. He had a great attitude and whenever you spoke to him about the whole ordeal, he was very upbeat and optimistic. But he didn't whistle, ever.

He came back to work full time a few months ago and he looked so different. He had lost a lot of weight and you could tell that he was recovering from a significant illness. The doctors wanted to put him through more chemotherapy as extra insurance but he declined. It had been an extremely difficult time and he felt the need for a rest.

I haven't heard much about his health lately but I think that everything must be okay.

Today, he was whistling.

And it made me smile.