These days I am feeling uncommonly well. Even when I'm having a bad day it is still a good day, if you know what I mean. Do I get angry at times? Yes. Miserable? On occasion. Grumpy? Well, that's an occupational hazard of aging, isn't it? I think what has changed for me in recent years is that I don't seem to fall into despair, at least not lately. For example, one of my neighbours is playing her or his stereo rather loud and it is kind of annoying. Is he going to go on playing it loud? No. Is it annoying? Yes. Overwhelming? Not really. If this were a wood frame building it would be a lot worse and if worse comes to worse I have lots of earplugs, which I am just now going to reach for...
So, I wore the earplugs, briefly while eating dinner. Now I don't have them in and it is nice and quiet again. I have always been noise-sensitive, much worse now that I am older and have survived Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I especially hate whistling. The sound of whistling, that is since whisting is something that I never do, in fact am unable to do, and one might reasonably wonder if my distaste for whistling could be somehow related to this lack of ability and that would cast an entirely different light on the matter.
For some reason, for me, whistling is the ultimate irritating noise, up there somewhere with police and ambulance sirens. I am forcing myself to tolerate whistling more anyway. Sometimes I have little choice. At least two of my bosses are occasional whistlers. They whistle off-key. The other day one of the clients at Venture was whistling. It was that familiar tuneless regular guy type whistle: "Twit-Twit-Twit. I'm a Twit-Twit-Twit." So, I grit my teeth, remind myself that I am getting paid to endure this, and just put up with it. In public it is getting a bit easier. It is only unbearable if the whistler is right behind me, then I try to get away as fast as possible. And yet, I enjoy birdsong. But birdsong comes from birds and I love birds, while human whistling comes from humans and...well, let's not go there, eh? Even though birds are infinitely nicer than humans, unless they happen to be crows which are really flying people with black feathers, perhaps I could remind myself that God loves humans even more than he loves birds? Oh convince me, please convince me.
People are infinitely nastier than birds, even worse than crows. But I am still reminded that God loves us according to his grace and mercy and not according to our desserts. Or is it deserts? Time to ask Uncle Google, who knows of course everything. Just type 666...Okay, bad and rather stale joke.
Okay, I have just consulted the Great Google and I have it now on authority that just deserts is the correct spelling of just deserts. Not just desserts, which is a chain of dessert cafes specializing in multilayered tortes, perfect for busting any diet, and not just deserts, as in only sand dunes and rocks and searing heat from the sun and no water water anywhere nor any drop to drink. And I sometimes wonder wherein I have sinned if enduring the whistling twits during the day is indeed the fitting punishment de jour. Or maybe this is a golden opportunity for me to extend to bipedal beings without feathers the same favour that I have lavished on bipedal beings adorned not only with feathers but wings too. And according to Our Lord Jesus Christ (to my non-Christian readers, do get over it if you don't like the terminology), God not only loves us as much as the sparrows whom he looks upon with tenderness and pity should any fall from the sky, but he loves us even more. Even when we whistle. And who knows, maybe Jesus even whistled. And perhaps still does sometimes from where he is seated at the right hand of the Father. But I'm also confident that he loves even crows. And crows don't whistle.
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