High praise indeed!

In spite of my fascination with pop culture, all my life I have been almost totally immune to many fads and trends that held people's fascination over the years. For instance, when I was a kid, I couldn't have cared less about the cartoons that were popular on Saturday morning. No, I much preferred good ol' Looney Toons from the '30s and '40s. Genius! There was more wit and imagination in three minutes of any Bugs Bunny short than in a whole episode of Scooby Doo ever (or the entire series, since every episode was exactly the same). I guess I never really knew how much of an influence Bugs Bunny was on me until the other day...

I was on the bus, making my way home after the last day of an extra long week at work (nine days). I got a seat right across from some guy hollering at a girl, not "holla"-ing, but hollering. "Baby! 'Ey baby! 'Ey! 'Ey! 'EY! Whatchoodoon? 'Ey girl! 'Ey baby! Talk to me! Whatchoodoon? C'mon girl! 'Ey! 'Ey! 'Ey!'EY!"
You get the idea.
Under the circumstances, I wasn't in the mood. Because under no circumstances would I ever be in the mood. Because under no circumstances would anybody ever be in the mood. I can only imagine how the target of his advances felt about the situation. This went on non-stop until she finally got off the bus (probably well before her planned stop). As she left, the would-be Romeo serenaded her with his phone number. I immediately programmed the number into my phone, and after setting it to mute, the ringer to silent and blocking my number by pre-dialing *67 first, I proceeded to dial him up.
"Hello? Hello? Hello?" He hung up.
About five minutes later, I rang him again. Same thing.
Again.
Again.
"Hello? Hello! HELLO!!"
It didn't take him long at all to get really angry. Shocker, that somebody like that would be the volatile type, right? I could see just how angry he was because, again, I was seated directly across from him, type-type-typing away on my phone the whole time. The obvious thing to do at this point was to increase the frequency of the calls. From five minutes to three minutes to two to about 30 seconds. That was when he figured out that somebody on the bus was screwing with him, but he had no idea who it was. I knew this because he chose to make an announcement.
"Yo! I know it's somebody on this bus calling my phone, and when I find out who, I'm going...(RING)"
"Y'all need to quit playing because...(RING)"
"Serious! Y'all using all my minutes! "
Oh no, he has limited minutes? Oh dear. I didn't consider that possibility. So I increased the frequency to constant.
"Yo, man...(RING)"
"Quit playin'...(RING)"
"Goddamn it...(RING)"
"Motherf...(RING)"
Now, you might be asking yourself why he didn't just turn the phone off. I know I wondered the exact same thing. Either he was delusional enough to think the girl who got off the bus over a half hour ago was going to call him any second or else he's just a straight-up idiot. Other than those two theories, I can't imagine why he would leave it on. Regardless, I was thrilled that he did.
He finally got off the bus, stomping, steaming and firing dirty looks at everyone. As soon as he was off, everybody in the bus cracked up. I called him one more time at that point as I watched him walk off so I could have a nice mental image to remember him by when I called him again later, because, oh yeah, I was going to keep calling until I got bored or I heard, "We're Sorry. The wireless subscriber you are trying to reach is unavailable at this time...". That reward would have been sweet enough, but I actually got something even better out of it. I shared a truncated version of this episode via Twitter and my pal Dylan sent me this message: "you are a crazy man, perhaps even a stinker similar to Bugs Bunny."
Wow, really? Bugs Bunny? I guess I never thought about it before but I have always enjoyed spreading low-level anarchy. It's so obvious, now that I think about it: Bugs Bunny was a mentor, a sensai! And now, all these years later, to be compared favorably to the master? I think this is how Luke Skywalker felt when he blew up the Death Star.