It was a wooden whistle from Czechoslovakia that I got on a class field trip to the Field Museum in Chicago. I kept trying to play it on the way home on the bus until squelched by my classmates. I thought I just didn't know how to play it, but I've still got the thing (it's very pretty), and I can now say with certainty that it is actually unplayable. I've gotten some better ones since, including a boxwood Renaissance flute that I just acquired this weekend, with whom I forsee a long and pleasant relationship.