We've all been there. Some day you'll be minding your own business - shopping for groceries, mowing the lawn, trying to study for a test - when out of nowhere comes an ambush. Like a ninja cloaked in black on a moonless night at midnight, the attack comes without hesitation or remorse. It stops you in your tracks as surely as a charging rhinoceros with a cow-catcher, like a baseball bat to the throat, like a raptor covered in hand grenades, like... you get the idea.

That same damn song is stuck in your head. Again. And it's not going anywhere.

How does this happen, and who does it happen to? Beyond the everyday ramifications and annoyances associated with this phenomenon, what are the costs in terms of actual lives? Is it possible for a brain surgeon to be confronted with "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" during a delicate procedure? What happens if any airline pilot just can't stop rocking out to "Toxic"? I decided to do some totally legitimate research on this phenomenon, making sure to ask real experts (that I obviously didn't make up) some serious questions. You see me winking, right?

My first stop was to the Horace F. Linder Institute in Presco, Vermont. Dr. Erskine Flora is the director, and was kind enough to answer some questions for me. Having performed research on songs being stuck in heads for most of his life - and coining the industry-wide term "adhesive music" to describe it - Dr. Flora is the most preeminent figure in his field.

"The real problem is bad music," he explains. "We've all heard 'The Star Spangled Banner' like five thousand times, right? Well, who has a problem with that one? I mean you're not going to be bumping to it or anything, but it's not actually bad enough to get trapped in your skull. Bad music is what adhesive music is made of; it sticks around, sort of like garlic breath and in-laws."

I was skeptical to say the least, but listened as Dr. Flora continued his explanation. "It's like this. As many times as you've heard some songs - like the national anthem - all year long year after year after year, what's the #1 offender for adhesive music? 'Jingle Bells.' It's on the radio and in department stores for around 1/12th of the year, but I'll be damned if 'Jingle Bells' isn't the culprit for three-quarters of all cases of adhesive music suicide."

The prestigious Horance F. Linder Institute also houses an impressive museum of sorts that displays historical and cultural responses to adhesive music throughout human history. Dr. Flora guided me through various displays and exhibits that consisted primarily of what we would now consider primitive forms of mental health treatment.

"What you hear about hypnosis or electroshock therapy these days is that they failed to perform as they were intended, and that all they're good for now is to help you quit smoking if even that much. Revisionist history at its finest, of course; the true purpose of instruments like these was to combat chronic cases of adhesive music... that is until the designs were stolen by rogue psychiatrists."

I expressed my doubt at such a conspiratorial statement, and Dr. Flora leaned closer to me, his eyes burning with excitement as he said, "Let me ask you this: how likely are you to be humming 'Frosty the Snowman' while a few thousand volts of electricity is being administered to your spine?"

Point taken.

Dr. Flora directed me to a colleague of his at an Army base in Collins, Wyoming. Colonel Willhelm Von Kressel, coincidentally a distant relative of Dr. Flora's, is in charge of an experimental weapons program funded by the Department of Defense's notoriously secretive "black budget." Just what, exactly, is this sprawling military complex doing in the middle of nowhere?

"We've been weaponizing 'Mmmbop' for around a decade," claims Col. Von Kressel. "There's really nothing else like it. It adheres and irritates across all cultural, social, economic and religious lines. We have data that indicates even Ghandi would have a 3,455% likelihood of stabbing somebody in the heart after as little as 48 hours of 'Mmmbop'." The Colonel also admitted that the margain for error in that calculation was 3,455%, but felt the research was showing real progress nevertheless.

This idea of Von Kressel's has roots going way back to a little dust up known a Operation Just Cause in the 1980s. "You probably weren't even alive then. Basically, the United States got involved in a regional conflict in Panama and we were trying to find a way to get Manuel Noriega out of his compound without just blowing everything to smithereens, I came up with the idea of blasting 'Panama' non-stop until he surrendered, which he did."

A few years after Operation Just Cause, Col. Von Kressel had his program. "Getting funding wasn't even that hard. I walked into the House of Representatives, locked the doors and played Darude's 'Sandstorm' until I had everything I needed. It took 15 minutes," he relates with a smile.

I decided to pay one last visit to Dr. Flora, having a new appreciation for his field. As we strolled through the museum once again we came across a crude-looking glass-encased chisel and mallet. Observing my look, Dr. Flora said simply, "Trepanation. Probably came around as a result from a primitive version of 'It's Raining Men.'"