Ear Worm

I hate cute cellphone rings. I especially hate ones that make noises other than electronic ringtone music. For example, the one that the (otherwise very nice) coffee cart lady here in Our Law School has recently downloaded to her phone and wants to show every single student that comes in to buy a latte. It starts off playing the first few bars of the old kindergarten favorite “Halloween Is Coming” , then switches to a high pitched whistling sound that I suppose that is supposed to be a scary, scary ghost saying “woooooooooo, woooooooooooooooooooo”. It makes me want to grab the phone right out of the (otherwise extremely sweet) coffee cart lady’s hands, stomp it into little pieces, and spit on the remains. The worst part of it is that the “Halloween Is Coming” part turns into what is called an “ear worm” in German.

An “Ohrwurm” is a song that gets inextricably stuck in your head, the most famous example being “It’s A Small World”. And as everyone knows, there is no cure for an ear worm—except another ear worm. Unfortunately for me, “Halloween Is Coming” seems to be a much stronger ear worm than even “It’s A Small World”. So now I want to throw myself on the ground, stomp myself into small pieces, and spit on my remains.