VERY Random Thought of the Day

So I often wonder, why do people whistle while they walk, NOT to be confused with whistling while you work (which the seven dwarfs made perfectly acceptable back in the 30’s). I understand whistling to get attention or whistling in the shower but just casually whistling whilst walking around, I want to ask why. According to Terry, who is an occasional walker who whistles, he says it is either to pass time because he is bored or he is in a good mood. (I am saying it is 99.9% the former of the two)

So what brought this random thought to the forefront of my perceptive mind, well at work TWO people at separate times were walking through the office whistling and I was at the grocery store and someone was pushing their cart while whistling. And so it begins. And the thing is it doesn’t really annoy me, which is a surprise as I seem to get annoyed with people easily, and I am ALL for people preventing boredom and to promote people being in goods moods so if that means a world of walking whistlers I will take that over a bunch of assholes ANY day. HOWEVER, when I hear a person whistle & walk I get easily distracted and my overly active imagination goes in overdrive and I start to think......

First I envision them walking with a little bounce in their step. I just don't think you can whistle and walk without a little skip thrown in. Enter MY mind and imagine with me, if you will, a person most likely wearing something along the lines of a pale colored polo shirt with a stripped matching collared shirt underneath and khaki pants and brown penny loafers walking in a very bouncy way through their suburban neighborhood (or an office) bobbing their head and swinging their arms in tune with whatever they are whistling. You can look into their eyes and see them smiling…you know, exactly what Tyra tells her potential “Top Models” to learn...smile with your eyes, folks. I feel as though you just can’t have one without the other, the whistle, the smiling eyes and the bouncy walk that is.

Plus, what tune would you whistle to while strolling. I feel that this is a very important decision and could make or break the whole walk and affect the mood you are in or trying to go for. (too stressful for me) Would you make up your own or would you whistle to, lets say Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” or maybe “Human” by the Killers or maybe you would go with a good 80’s song like "Build Me Up Buttercup". I mean, for sure you would not try walking and whistle something from the likes of Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd and for sure not Beethoven’s 9th. You whistle something like that you are bound to walk slowly and you would be gloomy and I feel as though it would defeat the entire purpose of whistling while walking. I know I don’t fully support the whistle/walk combo but IF you are going to do it, I say lets do it right. And I often want to ask people who whistle and walk if they will take requests....our office is a bit quiet at times and I am all for a good upbeat song to make the day go by.

I don’t ever see myself, no matter HOW good a mood I am in, whistling while I walk. Partly because it just seems odd to me, partly because I can not sustain a whistle for a long time without an excess amount of spittle coming out of my mouth, and partly because I am fairly certain I CAN NOT whistle and walk at the same time. I can barely walk and look to my right or left without falling down or running into something, so try to add a whistle, a bounce in my step, a head bob, swinging of my arms, smiling with my eyes and oh boy I see my stroll ending ugly……with lots of tears, blood, screaming, and me all curled up in the fetal position shaking. I would hate to find others in the middle of a whistle/walk of mine gone bad.

And yes, in case you were wondering, this IS where my mind went when I heard people whistling and walking.


This has been Random Thoughts by Jenn

PSA - Phone Conversations

I am in the mood to rant.

So here is the thing, I am not a fan of talking on the phone. I don’t hate it completely, infact sometimes it can be rather nice. But in general I am just not going to pick up the phone and talk to someone for hours on end. I very much limit the amount of time I spend on the phone. And if I am being honest, I DO screen my calls….sometimes I just don’t want to talk at all. I think it comes down to the facts that I (A.) have a short attention span on the phone and thus get easily distracted and (B.) get easily annoyed when I am on the phone.

The short attention span thing, well it doesn’t mean I am bored talking to you specifically I just get bored holding a tiny phone up to my ear and talking into that. Plus if something is on TV, or I hear a noise, or I see something shinny….I will pay attention to that because it is right infront of me and then I will semi-tune out the person on the phone. Sorry. I KNOW this is bad, but again I say that I think it comes down to the fact that I get bored on the phone. So how long do you have on the phone with me?

Well let us say L=the length of time I can be on the phone before I start fading into la la land.

L= [(Frequency of which we talk )*( The topic of conversation)^2] – the day of the week / where I am in my menstrual cycle – the last time Terry annoyed me + 6

So there you go, easy right. Use that formula to figure out the best time to reach me and when you will have the most of my attention.

You are welcome.



Besides getting easily distracted, I also get easily annoyed on the phone with people.

Here are some things that annoy me when I am talking on the phone:

1) Call Waiting. It SUCKS. I hate when I am on the phone with someone and they tell me to “hold on a minute, I have another call”. What, um I don’t think so, you are talking to ME, I called first that person can wait. I also don’t like when someone answers their phone and tells me that they are on the other line and to either call them back or ask me “what do you want, quickly…I am on the other line”. Again, I say if you were on the other line why the hell did you answer the phone in the first place. Seriously, I would have been more than happy to talk to your voicemail instead of either having to call back or to feel rushed in what I have to say.

2) Chewing while on the phone. Don’t EVER eat anything or chew gum loudly while you talk to me. I am not kidding about this, loud eating will put me in the crazy house….well I will be there anyways, this will just get me there sooner. Finish eating or spit out your gum and THEN call me. If I call you while you are eating please tell me so I can call back when you are done. This is seriously a non-negotiable point.

3) Talking to me AND talking to people in the room with you. Please don’t try to carry on conversations with other people while you are on the phone with me. This is just rude and I will most likely hang up on you until you are ready to talk just to me.

4) Speaker phone. Don’t put me on speaker phone (my parents are the ONLY exception to this rule). Speaker phone is SO distracting to me and I hate the delay.

5) Silence. If we are carrying on a nice conversation and it just flows I love that, but when we start getting to the areas of silence where we are trying to think of something to say to each other so we can “keep talking”, well I don’t like that. The minute the bouts of silence start coming, that is when you start losing me.

There was no real point to this story, unless you have ever called me and wonder why I can be a bit awkward on the phone or if you wonder why I don’t call more often. These are the reasons. Are they logical, Probably not… well except for the chewing while talking to me, that could get you hurt.

Anyone else not a fan of the phone conversations?

"I Didn't Understand You. Did you Say Yes?"

So I have to vent a bit and apologize upfront for the rather lengthy post.

I have a HUGE gripe with voice command. You know when you call your credit card company, bank, or pretty much anything else these days and you have to use voice command instead of pushing the buttons. This annoys me.

I called a credit card company (a well known company) and wanted to talk to a costumer service representative but now they have voice command and frankly it is irritating. I hate saying “yes”, “no”, “more options” when I could just hit the 1, 2, or 3 button….and more importantly, “0” to take me right to Customer Service. (And though I will admit some companies use a combination of the two, which still allows old-fashioned people such as myself to use the button feature, this company was not having it. No button pushing here – well except mine!)

So, I tried saying "customer service representative" half way through and just pushing "0" but it didn't understand that. I later found out I should have only said representative. (sorry I didn't get that memo) And when I did follow the rules by listening through the ENTIRE menu and answering the appropriate voice promps; that annoyingly pleasant voice questions my answer…”Did you say yes?”.

By this time the response I wanted to shout was YES YES, FOR GOD SAKE I SAID YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course I couldn’t really yell that b/c that would lead too…”I am sorry, I didn’t understand that. Did you say yes?”

UGH…get my point, I am annoyed right now just talking about how annoyed I am.

Seriously, are they trying to get people enraged?!?! Because one of two things will happen. One, I will be so seriously pissed off I will take it out on the person in India that is trying to help me or two, by the time I actually get to customer service I am so emotionally drained that I will not even care what happens, thus negating the purpose for me calling in the first place.

So in summary…..I HATE voice command.

Just give me back the option to use buttons to make the selections I want…..like pushing a button in the first place was that challenging?


P.S. I also have to say that I hate that it takes 10 minutes to even get to a human being in the first place. They make it SO hard to get to a person. Well it takes 10 minutes to get through the voice commands to get to a queue to WAIT another 10 minutes to talk to a living person all while Kenny G. plays in the background. Grrrr