I caught a bad earworm the other day from an article in Time magazine:
I’m not offended when Christians eat pork,” says Jacob Neusner. At least not usually. The brilliant–and none too patient–Jewish scholar does recall a religion conference where so much of the other white meat was served that he was reduced to a diet of hard-boiled eggs. One day on the food line something snapped, and he rhymed aloud, “I hope you all get trichinosis/And come to believe in the God of Moses.” A fellow conferee instantly replied, “And if we don’t get such diseases/Will you believe in the God of Jesus?”
I thought this was so clever that I repeated it to myself: “I HOPE you ALL get TRICHiNOsis/And COME to beLIEVE in the GOD of MOses.” I repeated it to two or three friends and family members. None of them seemed quite as enthralled as I, probably because they didn’t have it stuck in their head. Over and over: “And IF we DON’T get SUCH disEASES/Will YOU beLIEVE in the GOD of JEsus.” And so forth. After a while it didn’t seem all that clever, but that didn’t mean I could get rid of it. I was stuck with an earworm.
So I was pleased to learn this evening that I had good company in my misery. Seems that something similar happened to Samuel Clemens, or at least to his alter ego, Mark Twain. And his earworm was much, much worse, worse even than the Piña Colada Song:
“Conductor, when you receive a fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!
A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare,
A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare,
A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!
CHORUS.
Punch, brothers! punch with care!
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!”I came across these jingling rhymes in a newspaper, a little while ago, and read them a couple of times. They took instant and entire possession of me. All through breakfast they went waltzing through my brain; and when, at last, I rolled up my napkin, I could not tell whether I had eaten anything or not. I had carefully laid out my day’s work the day before, — a thrilling tragedy in the novel which I am writing. I went to my den to begin my deed of blood. I took up my pen, but all I could get it to say was, “Punch in the presence of the passenjare.” I fought hard for an hour, but it was useless. My head kept humming, “A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, a buff trip slip for a six-cent fare,” and so on and so on, without peace or respite.
Sounds a little like Dr. Seuss, doesn’t it? Except in a scary way. Twain got rid of his earworm by passing it to a friend, but today we have the Internet. Good luck.
