There are many song lyrics that I would be happy to have as an earworm.  You know, one of those catchy jingles that gets involuntarily stuck whirring round in your head on repeat.  Some songs are deliberately repetitive to induce just this kind of effect.  Most electronic dance music is designed to trigger the response, with short, syncopated beats, looping melodies and brief lyrics.  Where’s Your Head At. Happy for that to be endlessly rotating round my mind.  Firestarter. Always pleased to suddenly discover myself humming those lyrics.  The Pepto Bismol advert?  Not quite so enamoured.

“Nausea, heartburn, indigestion.  Upset stomach.  Diarrhoea-aaa.”

But, we can’t all be choosers of our destiny, so Pepto Bismol it is.  Locked in.  A continuous, invidious loop of:

“Nausea, heartburn, indigestion.  Upset stomach.  Diarrhoea-aaa.”

With all its associated inflection and nuance. (Inflection and nuance – two things that Pepto Bismol is unable to cure. Ed.)

At the same time, a mental picture of all the bloat-blighted characters from the advert – Greasy Spoon, directed by Anthea Benton – flash before my eyes, like a modern-day dyspeptic version of the classic line-up of the Village People.

“Nausea, heartburn, indigestion.  Upset stomach.  Diarrhoea-aaa.”

Above all else, it is that final Diarrhoea-aaa that lingers.  When all the other symptoms have begun to fade, that Diarrhoea-aaa stubbornly remains.  Is that a Californian uplift to the final syllable, or just a note of pleading desperation?

All might be well, if only I could keep the guilty knowledge of my earworm to myself; keep it in my head; not allow any evidence of existence to seep out into the real world, but I fear it is too late.

That unconscious buttock-clench at the end of the word Diarrhoea-aaa has become an accompanying nervous tick that is unmistakeable.

© Stephanie Snifter

Stephanie Snifter still can’t shift her Diarrhoea-aaa.