The holidays are upon us. ‘Tis the season for chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose — and getting songs like Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” hopelessly stuck in our heads.

But don’t worry. Help is at hand.

The Earworm Eraser is a 40-second audio track designed specifically to squash earworms — a song on repeat circling around and around in your brain that can’t easily be shaken off.

Around 90% of people report this problem at least once a week, according to a 2011 study in the journal Psychology of Music.

“One really effective way of blocking out earworms is to listen to something else,” said Kelly Jakubowski, an associate professor of music psychology at Durham University in the United Kingdom.

But if the replacement tune is equally memorable, it might just bring on another pesky earworm. So the Earworm Eraser avoids the features that typically make songs catchy.

“I’ve shown in my research that songs that have a more danceable tempo tend to become earworms,” said Jakubowski, who was part of the team that software company Atlassian tapped to create the Earworm Eraser. “And we also have found that having a predictable overall melodic shape can make a song become an earworm.”

That’s why the Earworm Eraser sounds like someone who can’t make up their mind what to listen to: Every few seconds, it switches between fast and slow tempi, while also changing time signatures and musical styles, which range from electronica to classical.

The Earworm Eraser has gotten more than 100,000 hits on YouTube since it launched last year. But the tool isn’t foolproof. Some people in the YouTube comments section say it doesn’t work for them.

Most say it does the trick, however.

Philadelphia-based tech worker Lauren Ettlinger said the Earworm Eraser rescued her after she visited her 1-year-old niece in Phoenix.

“She’s the light of my life. But she listens to these really annoying kids’ songs,” Ettlinger said. “And she went through a long phase where she was obsessed with the song ‘Baby Shark.’”

Ettlinger said she initially tried to get rid of this song — which happens to be the most viewed YouTube video of all time — by listening to tracks by her favorite artists, including Taylor Swift.

“Taylor Swift comes to mind of just having really catchy songs,” Ettlinger said. “But something about that ‘Baby Shark’ song was relentless, and it wouldn’t let go.”

Ettlinger said it took the Earworm Eraser to best “Baby Shark.”

“It just drowned out the noise, left me calm, left me relaxed,” she said.

Ettlinger said when she hosts her niece for the holidays this year, she might have to play the Earworm Eraser — on repeat.

Jennifer Vanasco edited this story for broadcast and digital. Chloee Weiner mixed the audio.

I don’t do casual sex. My labels are demisexual and sapiosexual, or some combination of the two, which makes being attracted to someone when there is no intellectual or emotional spark improbable, if not impossible. Ironically, I also have a very high sex drive. This unfortunate condition — that my lady parts have some morality clause I didn’t sign up for — has left me sexless and single for more years than I care to admit.

But when I met a successful author whom I admire (and have had a decade-long crush on) by chance while having dinner at the Tower Bar in West Hollywood, I once again gave the whole casual sex thing the old college try. After all, I knew the inner workings of his mind, and that’s half the attraction riddle solved. But there was something else. He felt familiar when I shook his hand. I unwittingly held onto it for longer than was socially acceptable. He let me. Instant chemistry.

Current trends debunk instant chemistry and familiarity with a potential mate, branding it as the obvious wrong choice. Familiar is bad, Instagram Reels tell me. And “butterflies” mean you’re destined to repeat the dysfunctional patterns of your relationship with your parent with your new lover— a fast track to heartbreak.

I don’t buy it. I am a fully formed, grown-ass woman who has navigated the vast landscape of my mind and consciousness through drugs, meditation, Buddhist psychology and sheer neurosis management. I refuse to discredit an immediate connection with someone as inherently dangerous and resign myself to passionless dating and relationships because “boring” is good and safe.

So, in the spirit of chasing the spark of chemistry and intellect (for me, lightning in a bottle), not long after meeting author guy for the first time, we were sitting on his hotel bed. He tried politely to get the requisite small talk out of the way, and despite my nervousness, I was game.

He was surprisingly open, though trying not to be. He said he would write his first short-story collection soon but wanted to get his latest book optioned into a movie. I said I was trying to find an agent for the YA novel I wrote from the point of view of my pit bull. Although we barely covered the basics, we did all right. Afterward, I laid my head on his chest, saying, “I’ll leave; just give me a minute,” and then added, “Insert Billy Crystal’s line from ‘When Harry Met Sally’ here.”

A short while later, we stood on Sunset Boulevard at the entrance to the Sunset Tower Hotel. The 15-story Art Deco building in Zigzag Moderne is my second favorite building in the world. Its shades of pink, cream plaster and bronze shift in the ever-changing light L.A. is famous for, from sunrise to the golden hour. We talked about the building, and I lamented that the plaster friezes weren’t lighted. Why wouldn’t the owner take the time to up-light the friezes? Seems like a shame. Like keeping a precious gem in the dark where its facets can’t shine. I asked a manager who happened by. He shrugged as if to say, “We just leave well enough alone.”

Author guy and I fumbled through an awkward goodbye. “I have your number,” he told me, which I was pretty sure translated to, “Don’t call me. I’ll call you.” And so, I didn’t. But when he texted the next day, I could still smell him on my skin, and I knew I wanted an immediate redo of our time together. Once we got to know each other, I was pretty sure the sex was going to be transcendental.

A month later, I invited him to my suite at the Pendry in West Hollywood. We still didn’t talk much, but when we said goodbye, I made my request in the lobby near the transportive Anthony James light sculpture.

“I know you’re busy, but I want to get to know you. There’s a connection between us I’d like to explore. Let’s talk on the phone if you can carve out some time.”

He didn’t call, but a few months later, there was an impromptu third time.

“We have great chemistry — the kind I haven’t had in most relationships. I mean, the sex is pretty f— great, don’t you think?” he asked, focusing his intent gaze on my own.

“It can be better,” I responded, looking away to make the honesty slightly less potent. “I need to know you and to be known. What we are doing doesn’t work for me. I need a little more for the sex to be truly great.”

“I guess I can call you when I have some downtime between writing,” he mused, adding, “I’m glad this happened.” We kissed goodbye, awash in the moonlight that casts Franklin Hills in a silvery, ethereal blue. After he drove away, I stood hopeful on my balcony, my gaze fixed on the beautiful, lit-from-within crown jewel of the Hollywood Hills — Griffith Observatory, the brainchild of a raging alcoholic who shot his wife in the eye. Star-crossed lovers. I wondered if they had great chemistry. Did he give her butterflies?

A day later, author guy texted. But he didn’t call. Hopped up on oxytocin and potentiality, I sent an overzealous voice memo, mentioning (again, ugh) that I wanted to have some repartee, shoot the s—, have a meal, add some talking to the sex, and that I definitely wanted to have more sex. He sent a long, panicked text in response. He liked me, but his schedule was full. And his anxiety and borderline depression were keeping him from calling anyone but his close friends.

I said I was disappointed. More than I thought I would be, but I understood.

In his mind, I was a liability, and in not taking the time to get to know me, he had averted disaster — or just left well enough alone. In my mind, a potential L.A. love affair (with great sex) ended almost before it began. In the end, author guy went with the short story. Seems like a shame. It could have been one hell of a novel — enough to base a movie on.

The author is a writer’s writer, copywriter and astronaut of the self who splits her time between Encinitas and Los Angeles. After writing this, she called Jeff Klein, owner of the Sunset Tower Hotel, and asked him to light the plaster friezes. She can be found at @sage_the_writer on Instagram and on LinkedIn.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.