When I was a kid, one of my great pleasures was watching Saturday morning cartoons. I especially loved Bugs Bunny,  a cheerful wise ass with a strong ego and perspective. His nemesis was the hapless Elmer J. Fudd, a self-described millionaire.

Elmer Fudd’s main task in life was pursuing Bugs, often with his shotgun.

Bugs had no problem fending him off, outsmarting and humiliating him.

Fudd may have been rich but he was not smart. I loved Elmer Fudd, and I  identified with him.

I remember that often, when he was defeated or embarrassed – which was all the time – he would puff himself up and announce “My name Is Elmer J. Fudd. I Have A Mansion And  A Yacht!”

And I do admit – I have to be honest – that these days, he does remind me of our President, who is, in his own way, telling us the same thing quite often. Fudd has endured.

For some reason, Fudd’s declaration became my catch phrase when I was beleaguered or frightened or humiliated, which was also most of the time. When my gym teacher yelled at me, or I had an accident in class, or some teacher was scolding me, or my father was lecturing me, or the principal wanted to know why I was not in school, I would always stop and think “My name is Elmer J. Fudd, I own a Mansion And A Yacht.”

This all came back to me this morning when Maria was kidding me for forgetting to make her toast crisp enough, a long-standing joke between us.

I turned and drew myself to full height – she is, after all, not much bigger than a forest elf – and announced “My name is Elmer J. Fudd. I own a mansion and a yacht!”

And she cracked up. “You are so strange!,” she said.

Elmer is still inside of me and will remain there, a testament of the power of imagination to touch and alter the life of a child. Like Fudd, I used it to preserve my dignity and sense of power.

I remembered that when I was wheeled into the operating room for my open heart surgery a few years ago, all trussed up in a flimsy gown and sprouting tubes, that the last thing I remember saying to myself – I don’t think I said it out loud, but I might have – was “My name is Elmer J. Fudd, I have a mansion and a yacht!”

Somehow, I internalized Mr. Fudd’s determination, pride and conviction that he was meant to get that rabbit.

Yesterday, one of the social media furies – her name was Mary – lit into me for buying a puppy rather than rescuing one. I should be ashamed of myself, she said, there is only one way to get a dog. I wasted no time in replying.

I wrote: “My name is Elmer J. Fudd. I own a mansion and a yacht!” It worked like magic. Mary went silent, she went away and never came back, shaking her head, I am sure, about the madman babbling about his mansion and yacht.

This is, in fact, quite often my secret reply to the legions of peckerheads and toothless ducks who try to tell me how to live my life, not because I asked them, but because they think they can.

Try it. It is better than any argument.  I am Jon Katz. I have a farm and some dogs.