Go Retire Psychiatrist

So, I’ve been looking at YouTubes on learning how to do fingerless whistling because I think it’s cool. I’ve never known how to do it. I can do pucker whistling OK, but now I want to see if I can do the whistling that some people manage to do by putting their fingers in their mouths.

I don’t want to stick my fingers in my mouth. It turns out that this fingerless whistling skill was big on YouTube about 5 or so years ago. I found one that made sense.

It’s daunting, probably because I try to keep track of all the quirky things you have to remember to do or not do with your mouth and tongue.

One thing you don’t want to do is blow yourself into respiratory alkalosis. Remember the movie “The Andromeda Strain”? The baby was one of only two survivors in the disaster that killed almost everybody in a small town when extraterrestrials invaded. That baby lived because it cried so hard and so long it went into respiratory alkalosis because the only way to protect yourself was to disturb your acid: base balance by over breathing or under breathing. The other survivor was an old alcoholic who drank sterno.

So, give yourself frequent breaks while learning how to do fingerless whistling.

The other question I had was whether or not the gap in my teeth on the right side would affect air flow enough to prevent forming a decent seal to produce a whistle. I just got a partial denture (with only one tooth!) and I experimented with trying to whistle with it either in or not in my mouth.

The short story is that it probably doesn’t affect it, or maybe makes it harder. That may or may not be due to the extra plastic on the upper palate.

I went out for my walk yesterday and practiced whistling. When I got outside our house I whistled and Sena actually heard me. She was in the back yard garden, which is about 100 feet from the sidewalk where I was.

On the other hand, you’ll want to turn up the volume so you can hear my mostly feeble whistles. I sound better in the shower, but that’s because it’s basically an echo chamber.