I generally hate having a tune stuck in my head. There are some songs I can no longer even listen to because I know that if I listen to them, they will be stuck in my head for weeks afterwards, long after they turn from song to jingle to an advanced torture device best reserved for suspected terrorists.

But my mom has a different take on it. She has, it turns out, been humming the same song for at least the last quarter of a century. (The song, as it turns out, is “La Vie en Rose”.) “I love having this song in my head,” she told me. “This way, I never have to worry about what I’m going to hum.”

Hmmm. Oddly, I’ve never worried about that either. At least–not yet.