Certain songs—simple, repetitive, or oddly incongruous—have properties that act as mental mosquito bites in that they produce a cognitive "itch." The condition also arises when people struggle to remember forgotten lyrics or how a song ends. To scratch a cognitive itch, the brain repeats the song, which then traps the hapless victim in a repeated cycle of itching and scratching.
I was glad to learn that earworms are "unrelated to both obsessive-compulsive disorder and endomusia, the hearing of music that is not really there." Maybe I'm not so crazy after all. Don't have an earworm at the moment, but just thinking about worms recalls one of the creepiest stories I read last year. If you want to test your wormy-squirmy quotient, try this from Outside magazine's November '04 issue. Thank heaven my parasitic "Lion Sleeps Tonight" is not Ancylostoma braziliense physically crawling around just under my skin.
Scientific name: several species (Dermaptera)
Facts: Earwigs are of little importance except that they frequently become a nuisance in and around homes. They emit a disagreeable odor when crushed and are quite sinister in appearance. Common Texas species are predaceous, capturing smaller arthropods with large pincers located at the end of their abdomen and devouring them with their chewing mouthparts. The average length is about 1 inch, but some individuals may be 1-1/2 inches long.
Photo credit: Extension Entomology, Texas A&M University
Half the folks I encounter at mall, airport, library, school, restaurant, bank, and grocery store have ear attachments to keep them perpetually connected. They often look like the raving, gesturing marginal persons under the highway interchanges in the large cities of this technologically advanced society. Others look like they escaped from a sci-fi convention. A third group may have significant repressed anger issues about 1960s ancestors with hearing aids.
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