A big man driving a very little car...  

I am a big man.
I stand 6’2” and some change. I weigh a touch more than 275 pounds.
There are some cars out there I can’t drive.
One of them is my Dad’s Mazda Miata, but oh boy do I want to try. My Dad has a Mazda Miata M Edition ragtop and I’ve been granted the special honor to be allowed to drive it around for a few days.
“Are you sure you can drive this thing?”
Am I sure?
I’m fifty and a marginally competent man. While most days it’s hit or miss whether I leave the house with or without the fly option implemented, or if I put on matching socks, or even socks at all, I can drive a car.
What’s so hard about driving a Miata?
Absolutely nothing.
I know where the key goes.
I know how to keep it pointed relatively straight.
I drive a stick so I can roughly coordinate both feet and my right hand through the gear shifting while at the same time talking on my cell phone and drinking coffee.
Driving it is not the hard part. Getting in and out of my Dad’s Miata... now, that’s the hard part.
When I get into this Miata, I have to fold myself like a road map behind the wheel. You know how it is with road maps, you never can get those things folded right again. The same holds true trying to squeeze inside Dad’s Miata.
Legs are wedged tight.
The steering wheel digs into my gut.
My head pokes about six inches above the windshield.
I feel like one giant sardine and the only thing missing is the mustard sauce.
I don’t need seatbelts.
Wherever this car goes I’ll be going with it.
I’m good and stuck.
I keep a tub of Crisco, a big spatula in the car and a shoehorn with me, just in case.
I call getting out of a Mazda Miata “The Shoehorn Extraction Method.”
The first time I tried to get out of Dad’s Miata I noticed that my shoes were untied.
So I reached up and untied them.
I hadn’t seen my feet in quite some time. So as I squatted there half in and half out of my Dad’s Miata, I got reacquainted with them. I also introduced them to my ears because that’s where my feet were, right up there next to my ears. My knees were contorted in a yoga-like position that I hadn’t been able to attain since I was in seventh grade.
Successfully removing oneself from my Dad’s Mazda Miata involves the maneuver, “drop, tuck and roll.”
I realized a guy my size doesn’t drive a Mazda Miata, I wear it like a cheap sweater.
This 1998 ragtop with saddle leather tan interior and what I like to call “varoom” maroon exterior shoots down the highway like a flat stone skipping across a shallow pond.
When you hit the pedal, she goes.
My head protrudes about six inches above the windshield, which makes a great target for flying objects like beetles, hornets, bumble bees, and cigarette butts thrown from the car up ahead.
I am too tall to drive this car.
Still, this thing is sweet to drive. She purrs like a kitten on Ritalin. The first time I wedged behind the wheel I wore my official Tom Cruise Maverick Top Gun reflecto shades, Kenny Loggins and Danger Zone cranked on the radio, and I felt the need for speed. I revved her up to about 65 mph give or take and a June bug smacked me in the forehead.
Now that left a serious mark.
When you sit behind the wheel of a Mazda Miata ragtop with leather seats and varoom maroon interior, people look at you. You also spend as much time looking at yourself looking cool driving your Miata ragtop as watching the road.
Such coolness should not go unnoticed.
It’s tough being a big man driving a little car.
Ever try squeezing ten pounds of potatoes into a five-pound bag?
I have now.
I am that ten-pounds of potatoes and the Miata is the five-pound bag.
Growing up, my dream car was the 1968 Shelby Mustang; the kind Steve McQueen drove in the movie Bullitt.
Not anymore.
I am a Mazda Miata M Edition “varoom” maroon ragtop fan now.
I have become quite attached to this car over the past few days.
In more ways than I care to enumerate here.
Anybody got a shoehorn?