You know how to whistle don't you......

I'm a whistler. I love few things more than a satisfying tuneful whistle whilst I bob along listening to whatever it is the old iPod has randomly selected to fill my ears with. I whistle because my singing is awful, not that stops me very often. But whistling is more preferable and less likely to cause outrage on the bus, my voice being awful enough to cause outrage. But after Wednesday's shenanigans in town I may have to give up whistling as well. It was all just a misunderstanding but it left me red faced and forced me to unplug my headphones and wander with nothing but my own thoughts for company. Scary moments I can tell you.

cheeky santa plays a sad trombone
just for you.....

I was bobbing along listening to The National whistling away and somewhat unaware of my general surroundings, as you do when you are having a footloose and fancy free afternoon. When I whistle with the iPod on I tend to just whistle to selected parts of the tune. If you were listening to me whistle you would have no clue as to what I was listening to. After a while I found myself in the queue in Boots the Chemist. The queue was long and people were budging and bodging in that extra special way they like to at christmas time. Oh yes the atmosphere was just "special". Tis the season to be jolly, apparently.

The chap in front of me was a large specimen of manliness and he didn't appear to be enjoying the intricacies of the Boots queueing system. He huffed and he puffed and he appeared to be trying to make the people in front of him move quicker with his eyes. Needless this wasn't working for him. I was in no hurry so I just whistled away the time and shuffled forward as the the queue snaked it's way closer to the tills. Yer man was getting more and more tense, I could see him huffing and lipread his muttered swearing. I'm not sure my whistling was helping him much. I was fucking positive it wasn't helping when he turned round sharply and said, well I didn't get it first time as I had my headphones on. But he helpfully repeated it.

"Did you just fucking wolf whistle at me, mate?", he seethed through gritted teeth.

"Me?"

"Aye fucking you, you wee fat...."

"Woah, I've no idea what you're on about. I was whistling to the iPod." I said this more forcefully than I would normally when faced with a 6 foot oaf as Boots is crawling with security guards.

"Well knock it fucking off", says he and he stuffed his shave cream and hand wipes(?) onto the nearest shelf and stormed off pushing past people in the queue. Charming I'm sure. I did decide to switch the old iPod off though, just in case he came back. That's the second time I've done that. It was all frightfully embarrassing.

Still not as embarrassing as the woman who demanded to speak to the Glorious Leader on Friday night. Bear in mind this happened at about half seven on a Friday night in December. That's prime time. Whilst the gravy wasn't hitting the fan it was perilously close. All the waiter chums were deep into to turkey town by this point. It would be safe to say these turkeys were moving quicker in death than they ever managed in life. They had reached their little turkey destinies and the chef hadn't let them down.

All was well so it was with some surprise that we found out that somebody was demanding to speak to him. He doesn't like facing punters with no knowledge of what their problem is as he cant trot out any of his prepared lines. Off he fearlessly tottled leaving us to fret that we had done something wrong. Had someone noticed that gravy spill on their coat? Did table six hear my opinion of her haircut, not good by the way - looked like a skunk, a skunk I tells ye! Whatever it was we didn't know, which left us unable to get out stories straight. We would have to wing it.

He arrived back ten minutes later seething with passive aggressive rage. Sometimes I just wish he would join me in the darkside and let the rage out. Lovely lovely rage. This is what he told the huddled group of waiter chums.

"Yes madam how can I help?"

She stood there with her arms out stretched and looking all around the room. "Help me? Look?"

"Eh, at what?", says the coffee drinker-in-chief.

"LOOK!"

"At what?" He has a tremendous ability to stay calm.

"There's no one dancing" said she and pointed at all the people not dancing but seemingly having a good time.

"Okay and ...?"

"Make them dance", insisted the crazy woman.

"Make them dance? How should I make them dance?", enquired the boss. Now see I would have reached for the stabbing fork right at that point. Make them dance? Get away and shake yerself. A Sad Trombone moment if ever there was one.

There then ensued, an apparently, lively discussion about how it was the bosses fault that people weren't dancing and that it was his responsibility to make them dance as it was ruining her night. I mean what do you do faced with that sort of nonsense? He dismissed her out of hand, what else could you do? She advised him to "go to business school". Ouch, bet he like that.It's just a result she didn't approach me first. God bless the band they really do try but you cant please all the people all the time. Maybe they should try their hand or lips at a bit of whistling, that seems to get people moving!

Mentalists the both of them, the man in Boots the Chemist I mean. Not the boss. Okay maybe the boss too.