Total recall, or Sarah and the Jingle Bits

Since I have a known mental defect: my brain is a constant jukebox of sound clips, commercials and annoying songs, I sometimes don’t even slow down enough to notice that it’s happening. It’s like a tic, really, and I often say that it’s probably Tourette’s or OCD and nothing I can control. The above video is a clip from Nickelodeon that I often get embedded in my skull. I also constantly hum other old commercials, cartoon intros, Wham! songs and that effing Miley Cyrus song “Party in the USA.”

I like this tic, though, and hope it never goes away. I do wish I remembered regular stuff, like math, but I guess it’s cool to have total recall of every commercial jingle ever made and also every pop song since 1964. I guess it’s cool that I listen to really cool music like Social Distortion or the Modern Lovers in the morning and have the theme from “Gummi Bears” in my head instead. I guess that’s just AWESOME.

It does get kind of old remembering stuff that no one else does. So when I find someone who remembers some useless little bit of an old commercial or something, I latch onto that person and constantly hound them about it. “Hey, remember that Toyota commercial from 1986? Isn’t that funny that we both remember that! Ha! Hahaha, even!”

And then that person either laughs with me (like a true friend) or looks at me with sadness in their eyes and a fake smile curling up their lips. I know then that that person isn’t special like me. Or that that person has a life, which I don’t have.

Case in point: My old roommate, the gay husband, remembered every jingle from his childhood growing up in Indiana, as well as a bevy of national favorites. I thought this was fantastic, and we would spend long, drunken hours singing them at the top of our lungs to no one in particular. No wonder it took him such a long time to find a man to marry; he was always hanging out with his crazy friendgirls who sang Mazda commercials with him.

Texans, especially Dallas-area Texans, have a firm hold of the commercials of the 1980s, mostly because they were incredibly annoying and catchy: Westway Ford, Trophy Nissan, Dalworth carpeting… I spent my summers in Tarrant County since I was 6, so I know Texas commercials. My youngest sister, The Saint, often sends me texts containing only jingle bits. (Note: I want to name a band “Sarah and the Jingle Bits,” and maybe we’ll perform all these old commercials. That is more rad than Tad. OOOH, now I want to name a band “More Rad than Tad”! I’m on a roll!)

I recently learned that some of my interesting little quirks might be considered “psychologically abnormal,” thanks to Allie Brosh’s blog here about synesthesia from my favorite blog of all time, Hyperbole and a Half. For instance, my feeling sorry for the unmated sock might not be normal. Like, all of you don’t feel sorry for the sock with no mate or the bleach-stained shirt that never got to go to the party it was destined for.

That blog entry (and the blog itself) has changed my life, and made me realize that maybe I can get on disability and never have to work again! HOORAY!

But probably not, since I’m also a workaholic and need lots of money to buy cable so more commercials will lodge themselves in my brain. It’s a twisted life. I love it.