I'm responsible for this morning's earworm.  It's one that visited me a couple of times a year even before I had my hearing problem.

Years ago, while in college, I got a summer job as a dishwasher at a 4-star restaurant called The Casa Di Luce.  As luck would have it, I was able to get two of my friends dishwashing jobs, too.  Two of us worked every evening, one manning the dishwasher, cleaning all of the plates and tableware that came in from the floor, while the other worked in the other room, keeping the chefs' pots and pans cleaned and ready for the next dish to be cooked.  On busy days, we'd barely see each other, both of us being cleaning demons.  But on most days, like an average Tuesday, we'd get to hang some.

While officially we were allowed to eat "anything that was left on the plates" (AKA the garbage), the Chefs, most of them from Eastern Europe, wound up really liking us and would make us all kinds of fabulous meals.  While eating, David, a young chef from Czechoslovakia, who always had a cigarette dangling on lip (even while cooking) and who spoke in broken English, would keep asking me to introduce him to my big sister, and ended up nick-naming me "Brudder-in-Law."

The actual Casa schedule.  (Yea, I keep everything.)

As one might imagine, working with your friends, and being fed like kings (and I didn't even mention the bar tender, who also liked us, and would hand over a six pack of Molson Golden at the start of every shift) it was the most fun job I ever had.  So much fun that it deserved a song.

This is where the earworm comes in.

I'm not exactly sure how it happened.  My best guess is that way back when, when my earworms occurred with the frequency of most "normal" people, that this was an earworm that I couldn't shake and brought with me to the Casa one night.  I do seem to remember humming the chorus, over and over again; sometimes even breaking out into song:

 "At the Copa, Copacabana
  The hottest spot north of Havana
  At the Copa, Copacabana
  Music and passion are always in fashion
  At the Copa…. Don't fall in love…"

Now, I'm one hundred percent confident that Barry Manilow's Copacabana rates pretty high on the list of earworm infestations for folks in my generation.  How could it not?

But my current earworm is not Copacabana.  At least not exactly.  While singing away while loading and unloading the dishwasher at work, I improvised some lyrics.  And in no time, I had a brand new chorus, one that will likely haunt me for the rest of my days.

(Sung as the chorus above.)

"At the Casa, Casa Di Luce
Scrubbing pots and pans, getting dish-panned hands.
At the Casa, Casa Di Luce
Phil, Kev and Todd, loafing on the job
At the Casa… Casa Di Luce…."

After coming up with the chorus, I seem to remember enlisting Phil and Todd to help fill out the rest of the song.  We may have had a verse or two, but those have been lost to history.  (Unless the guys' remember them.)  Alas, however, the chorus remains.  And, as I mentioned, it has returned many-a-time in the past twenty-odd years.

Of course with it comes many (many) great memories of the evenings working there.  As I'm sure this particular earworm will return again (and again), I'll be able to introduce you to some of the staff, which included Dee, the red-headed, lascivious waitress and Richie, the hyperactive, coke-snorting head waiter, as well as others.  Stay tuned.

Until then, enjoy: