> By the way, why do people whistle in the dark, anyway? I assume it's because they're scared of the dark...

Once I heard from a black man who said that when he walked down the streets alone at night, he noticed that people were afraid of him. He suspected it was because of his race, and I suspect he was at least partially right, although I always wonder about *anyone* I see walking alone at night (the people I see while I'm walking around alone at night). In any case, this man discovered that people were less wary of him if he whistled as he walked, and so he got in the habit of doing so.

So there's one reason someone might whistle in the dark -- not to keep from being afraid but to keep others from being afraid.

I suppose if you walked around at night whistling the funeral march, it would not have the same effect.