Doctor's Note Required: I Medically Assessed the Local Jingles Living in My Skull

I went to a doctor recently. Real one, board-certified, excellent bedside manner. She asked me to name my medications and I accidentally said "Call 1-800-588-TWO-THOUSAND" in a confident baritone I have not used since 1997.

She did not find this funny. I found it deeply informative. Because I have come to realize that my brain is not a brain. It is a warehouse. And the warehouse is stocked exclusively with local TV commercials from the greater metropolitan area of my childhood, and the inventory is never leaving.

So in the spirit of preventive medicine, I have conducted a full medical assessment of the jingles. Catchiness is the vitals. Aggression is the blood pressure. The 3 a.m. Summoning Risk — the odds a jingle will erupt unbidden in the dark — is the terminal diagnosis.

The Car Dealership Jingle: Stage 4, Terminal

Every region of America has one. Mine had a man in a star-spangled blazer who screamed the dealership name as though the savings were physically attacking him. "HUGE! DEALS! HUGEEE!" — a melody so aggressive it registered on seismographs two counties over.

• Catchiness: 10/10. I cannot forget it. I have tried. I have genuinely, deliberately tried.
• Aggression: 11/10. This jingle did not want to be your friend. This jingle wanted your Social Security number.
• 3 a.m. Summoning Risk: Certain. If I wake at 3 a.m. for any reason — thirst, anxiety, a noise — the blazer man is there. Waiting. "HUGE deals."

Prognosis: Incurable. The jingle has metastasized to my dreams. When I imagine the afterlife, it is a car lot.

The Furniture Store Jingle: Chronic but Manageable

A gentler illness, the furniture jingle. Mine was a local chain whose owner sang, off-key, on a rotating recliner, that he was "slashing prices like a man possessed." The rhyme scheme was a war crime. The delivery was sincere. The recliner spun with the slow dignity of a carousel at an abandoned mall.

• Catchiness: 7/10. It works its way in like a draft.
• Aggression: 3/10. This man just wanted you to be seated comfortably while your family grew around you.
• 3 a.m. Summoning Risk: Moderate. Usually triggered by passing an actual furniture store, at which point the jingle activates like a car alarm.

Prognosis: Stable. This one I've made peace with. If I'm going to host a jingle forever, I'd prefer it be a middle-aged man spinning gently. That's not the worst roommate.

The Personal Injury Lawyer: Asymptomatic Until It Isn't

Here is the frightening one. The injury lawyer jingle presents no symptoms for years. Then you slip on ice in a parking lot at age 34 and, while still on the ground, you hear yourself whisper the phone number. You didn't even hire him. You don't have a case. Your body filed the claim anyway.

• Catchiness: 9/10. They had budgets. They had horn sections.
• Aggression: 6/10 toward insurance companies, 0/10 toward you, which is honestly the correct ratio.
• 3 a.m. Summoning Risk: Situational. It only activates upon physical injury, like a jingle-shaped airbag.

Prognosis: Dormant. But it's in there. It's always in there.

The Local Ice Cream or Pizza Place: The Benign Tumor

Not everything in the warehouse is hostile. There's always one — a jingle for a family pizza spot with a cartoon mascot and a xylophone, sung by what I can only assume was the owner's daughter's high school choir. It was bad. It was beautiful. I would die for it.

• Catchiness: 8/10, but in a warm way, like a fever you enjoy.
• Aggression: 0/10. This jingle has never harmed anyone.
• 3 a.m. Summoning Risk: Low, but when it fires, it fires with a wave of homesickness so intense you have to sit down.

Prognosis: Keep it. Frame it. This is the good kind of brain damage.

The Follow-Up Appointment: Bring Back the Jingle

Here is my prescription, and modern brands should take it: the jingle is due for a renaissance. Everything in advertising now is either a podcast ad read by a man who clearly wants to go home, or a TikTok sound that evaporates in nine days. Nothing sticks. Nothing sets up residence in the skull and refuses to pay rent.

A jingle is a long-term lease. A jingle is a timeshare in your hippocampus. Somewhere out there is a DTC mattress company that could hire one (1) unhinged local legend in a blazer and own my brain until I die. Instead they buy podcast ads where the host pretends to like mattresses.

Bring back the horns. Bring back the off-key owner. Bring back the screaming. My warehouse has shelf space, and frankly, the current tenants could use some new neighbors.

The doctor, for the record, prescribed rest and hydration. She clearly doesn't understand that I can't rest. There's a jingle playing.