wolf whistle

[Alan H]

Last week I was out with the Luminous Joan, doing something around town. We were walking down the street, and passed a storefront that was being seriously remodeled. As we passed, and were two steps beyond the storefront I heard it...the wolf whistle. One of the workers...there were six or eight guys in there doing sheetrock and painting...had wolf whistled at me.

I'm not quite sure why that annoys me, but it does, so I stopped, turned around and walked back with intent to have some words with whomever it was. After two or three seconds of silence, just before I actually got to the open, double-wide door, the whistler, in an attempt to get out of the situation, continued whistling some tuneless thing. He was trying to make it seem like he'd just been whistling any old thing, not that he'd whistled at ME....that was obvious. I don't know which of the guys in there was the one, but I looked around the storefront, catching as many eyes as would look at me, nodded, smiled and continued on my way.

This little scenario will doubtless prove once again to some here that AlanH has a serious chip on his shoulder and has issues with everyone and everything. However, my intent was rather more to educate than confront if I'd found the whistler. I thought it was interesting, and I wonder about the motivation of the whistler. It was probably just a joke, he didn't think I'd actually hear it, and the guy was embarrassed to get called on it, but of course I don't know that, I'm just guessing. The Hispanic high school boys at one of the schools I substituted at thought it was funny...behind my back or in packs, to whistle at me, but I'd figured that adults were a little more "together". At least the guy had the sense to realize it was a dumb thing to do, and try to get out of the situation.