I was driving around the Coastal Empire the other day with my imaginary friend Basquat Finch when he wondered aloud about the phrase “hopping mad.”

“You’ve heard it, I assume,” said Basquat, turning down my CD player. “Hopping mad?”

“Yep,” I said. “Well, have you ever seen anybody so mad they hopped? Actually hopped? Like up and down hopped?”

I thought about that for a second. I’ve seen plenty of mad people. Not sure any hopped, though. A woman growled at me, once, but most just turn red and start breathing through their nose real loud.

“The phrase,” Basquat continued, checking his smart phone “comes from the 17th century, apparently. Perhaps hopping was a way to get one’s point across, before Twitter and Facebook turned half the country into morons. Must’ve been rather effective to have the phrase pass down to us all these centuries later.”

Basquat – it’s pronounced “bass-squat” –talks like that because he’s educated. He’s also a trophy-sized largemouth bass, being imaginary, but never mind that.

“Just imagine,” he continued. “Being so angry about something you hopped. It would be like you were the subject of one of the headlines on the Fox News’ website. You’ve seen what I’m talking about, I imagine. ‘School boards make parents blood boil!’ That sort of over the top stuff.”

I nodded. “They do go heavy with the hyperbole,” he added, scrolling and reading aloud: ‘We’re doomed’: Americans grade Biden’s handling of China.

“The unholy alliance of academic elites and government bureaucrats threatens free speech everywhere “Riley Gaines demolishes Biden after he vows to veto measure protecting women’s sports.”

“That’s just from one quick look,” Basquat said, sighing. “Everything is dark and brutal and savage in their headline writers’ world. But then we are doomed. It’s only a matter of time before each of us shuffles off this mortal coil.”

I braked hard to avoid demolishing someone who suddenly turned in front of me and thereby sending both of us off our mortal coils.

“That woman had a lot of faith in your brakes,” said Basquat. I said something I can’t write down without using “bleep” a lot.

Basquat grinned. It was unsettling, in a way. “What’s your take on Bud Light?” he asked. “I never liked it,” I said. “Ah yes,” said Basquat. “That’s right. You liked the cheaper stuff. Quantity over quality.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Unless we’re talking subdivisions, better to have too much than not enough.”

“Close only counts in tiddly winks and hand grenades,” Basquat said.

“Exactly.” He went back to the Fox News website. “Here’s another headline. ‘New York Times staffers are whining again and you won’t believe why,’” he said, reading aloud.

“Oh yes I will,” I said. I canceled my Times subscription years ago when their reporters got wound up over an opinion piece they disagreed with. “They’re a bunch of whiners,” I added.

“That’s patently true,” Basquat said. “But then during your Army days your sergeants used to call you Whiny Whitten, I believe?”

“Actually they called me Big Daddy Whitten,” I said, “because for a runt I was larger than average. Whiny Whitten came when I got into newspapering and started whining.”

Basquat mused a second, chuckled, then went back to his phone.

“Ah, here’s a good one: ‘Elon Musk reveals his thoughts on aliens.,” Basquat said.

“Well, it certainly takes one to know one,” he added, then read another headline aloud: “The left is hell-bent on killing these great cities, and yours. Yikes.”

We drove past a Dollar General, plastic bags blowing across the asphalt parking lot into weeds already dotted with years worth of garbage. “Didn’t their CEO or something run for governor and Senator as a Republican?,” Basquat asked, before getting back to Bud Light.

“I’m all for live and let live, as you know, but why in the world are grown men boycotting a beer brand because it hired a guy who thinks he’s a girl to do an ad?”

“Beats me,” I said. “It seems somewhat ironic that the people getting their panties in the biggest wad over this non issue are men,” Basquat said. “If you see what I did there.”

“I did,” I said. “Real men don’t wear panties.” “Exactly. Besides, whatever happened to live and let live,” Basquat asked, then answered his own question again.

“Probably doesn’t make for good headlines,” he said.