I know a guy who is nuts. Because the waves of his brain dance about like some Mexican jumping bean when those around him gasp at his antics with such awe and wonder, his self-entertaining high jinks have endeared him to my very soul and I love him immensely.

No, I’m not going to tell you his name, but if you drive by his house the mailbox plaque out front reads, “Occupant.” Also, taped to the glass of his front storm door is a full-sized, full color, photograph of a seated African lion, like it is the family house pet waiting on its master to come back home.

Once, when he was coming home from UT as a student, he boarded a Greyhound bus and went to the back, completely disrobed, and rode all the way home sitting calmly despite being buck-naked. His deal is to watch people’s reactions, to startle his unsuspecting “pigeons” and relish the alarm he causes. Even now, when he remembers his various escapades, he recalls his many stunts and clever capers with gales of hysteria.

I bring this up because he, too, has been an “uninvited guest” like the two buffoons who just crashed President Obama’s state dinner the other night. Every civil person is taught from the very beginning you don’t go where you are not invited. Not only is it not socially accepted, it’s just plain wrong if your name isn’t on the list.

Conversely, there are those who take delight in having their picture taken with President Obama, who love to pretend they are exactly where they should be when they are precisely where they shouldn’t.

My boy, “Mr. Nuts,” loved his “uninvited guest” scam. He would be driving somewhere during the early evening when he would spy a whole lot of cars parked in front of somebody’s house. He would immediately double back to a grocery store, buy four or five of the biggest bags of potato chips they had in stock, and then park with the other cars outside a complete stranger’s home.

Clutching the bags like some frantic holiday shopper, he would hurriedly make his way to the front door, bang his way inside without ever knocking, and as the hosts and other guests in the crowded house would look at him with bewilderment, he would loudly and gaily yell, “Sorry I’m late … I brought the chips!”

Are you kidding me? Pandemonium would darn near break out. Nobody ever knew who he was. He’d immediately make small talk with two or three people, telling some lady she sure did look good in that color of red or asking another if the Braves won that day. He would get an appetizer or two, maybe a drink, until finally he would be politely confronted by the hosts in a way that asked …. er, what was he doing there, and he’d act surprised. “This is the Johnson’s, isn’t it?”

Quickly assured it was not, he’d gather up his chips, those slippery bags falling just like in some comedy skit while my boy played his pseudo-embarrassment to the nines, and he would then struggle to keep a straight face as he would walk back into the night. At that point, he would then drive home, eating potato chips and laughing hysterically at the scene he’d just caused. If you don’t think that’s funny, I can assure you my boy keeps himself warm in winter with such memories.

Trust me, my boy is evermore squirrelly because not a day passes that his impish mind isn’t whirling. But, so help me, it is a “good kind” of nuts, the kind when I’m chasing the blues I can simply think of him with delight and giggle. He’s got the heart of a prince and there is absolutely nothing he wouldn’t do for a friend. But one time he went too far. As they say, “he hung himself.”

Late one afternoon, once during his wanderings, it is said he saw all these automobiles that were parked just so around a nice-looking house so – bingo – the game was on. He found a grocery store, bought a bunch of chips and then gathered them up in his arms just like so many times before.

Wham! He bolted through the front door. “Hey, I brought the chips!” he yelled but this time nobody moved. Instead, a kneeling priest was slowly and reverently reciting the Last Rites over some poor soul before the funeral-home hearse was to arrive. Oh my goodness.

My boy back-stepped out of that house on his tiptoes, mortified over what he had just done. It wasn’t funny, not even for him. But you ought to hear him tell about riding the Greyhound naked or talking about all the “really nice people” he has met during his one-man circus of a life. He’s a hoot, I am telling you.

And while I respect and appreciate state-department decorum, I also have to tell you I like a little moxie every now and then, too.

royexum@aol.com