The Earworm Wars

If you don't know what an earworm is, let me educate you. An earworm is a piece of music that sticks in one's mind so that one seems to hear it, even when it is not being played. I'm sure you've experienced this phenomenon, where a song seems to get stuck in your head and plays over and over, driving you nuts.

Our little earworm war started with an innocent text from my mother. "The phone...the phone is ringing!" (if you don't get that reference, lucky you. Here's a youtube clip to explain. Consider yourself already fairly warned about it being an earworm. You may not want to hit play.)

Now, for some reason, that innocent song became a total earworm for me, even to the point where I caught myself singing it when half asleep and in the shower. I found this particularly embarrassing, as the song came from a preschooler's show, and I don't have preschoolers.

Then my husband decided to play with me. He snuck away with my phone and recorded himself singing the stupid theme song, ending the song with maniacal laughter (and I should add that my husband is totally tone-deaf, so the song is completely off-key). He then set that recording as the ringtone on my phone, specifically to play only when he called me.

I didn't know about it until a couple days later, when he called me from the store to ask if he should pick up milk. Unfortunately, he called while I was in the same room with my younger boys.

"The phone...the phone is ringing. The phone is ringing! Mwahahahaha!"

James and Jacob fell over each other laughing, tears rolling down their faces. Every time they looked at me, they'd crack up again, and an hour later I heard them singing while they were doing their chores.

"The phone...the phone is ringing!"

This was all my mother's fault - she started it. So I decided it was time for some payback. There is one song that she cannot stand to listen to, even though she loves the song, because the chorus gets stuck in her head and becomes a horrible earworm, lasting for weeks.

So I called up her phone and recorded the chorus to this song onto her voice mail.

Payback, thy name is Bitch. And I am your devoted servant. Now, I just have to figure out how to get ahold of my husband's phone.....mwahahaha!

EDIT (from a couple days later):  Was outside trying (unsuccessfully) to weed the front garden. Trouble was watching from the living room via an open window, because he freaks out when anyone is outside and he's not. It's like he thinks he can't protect us or something. The more of his family that's outside, the more freaked out he gets.

Just then, the phone went off. In Sean's voice. Singing that stupid song.

And the 60 pound pit bull puppy went bounding through the screen, eager to greet and protect his "Daddy".

FML