Top up, cramped — Top down, liberating

Ham the Chimp squashed into his capsule at
Holloman Air Force Base in the late 1950s.
My husband swears this is what he feels like in the MG.

Editor's note: I am under the weather, and while I was sick in bed, my husband Jim disappeared for a few hours, came home and wrote the following. 

I hate my wife’s MG.

It is evil personified. It is a cash-sucking machine. It is British engineering — which is an oxymoron equivalent to jumbo shrimp, military intelligence, fiscally-responsible Democrat, or compassionate conservative.

This hatred started when our Saturn died, forcing us — and by us, I mean me because Kim took possession of Honda Fit — to use the MG to get back and forth to work. Had it been time any other time of the year it wouldn’t have been so bad, but alas, this happened during a very cold stretch of winter. That meant the MG’s top had to stay up.

A couple of very bad things happen when the top is up. First, all the vehicle noises — of which there are many — get amplified. Second, the smallness of the cabin makes me bent over and squished. I feel like Ham the chimp, the astronaut chimpanzee NASA crammed into a rocket and shot into space.

On cold days, which all of those days seemed to have been, I had to use starter fluid to get the MG to start. As much as I washed my hands after, I could still smell the fluid as I headed to work.

Another reason for my hatred of the vehicle is that fact that it spends as much time in repair shops – or waiting to go to a repair shop — as it does running. There was one week in which it made three trips to a repair shop — once for an odd wheel noise, a second time for a broken seat, and a third time for a wonky starter.

If it were any other vehicle, I would have pushed my wife to get rid of it. It would have been on Craigslist so fast it would have made your head swim.

Ham the chimp peers out of his capsule.
www.animalplanet.com

So why is it still in our carport? Let me begin by quoting one of my daughter’s instructors who said of an obstinate llama that was refusing training: “Well, at least she’s pretty.” Yes, damn it, it is pretty. People’s heads turn when we drive it. When I drive it, I have women who wouldn’t normally give me the time of day come up to me.

When my redhead wife is in it even more heads turn. Kim insists that isn’t true, that people are just looking at the car. As a guy, I know the difference between an admiring look at a vehicle and a lecherous look at a woman. Let me break down the guy math for you: sports car + redhead = sex on wheels.

Ok, so I’m exaggerating. I don’t really hate the MG. In fact, I’ve had some great moments in it. The first that leaps to mind is driving it to my wedding with one of my groomsmen, James Koren, in the passenger seat, both of us in tuxedos. It looked like something out of a James Bond movie. Okay, with two guys, it looked like something out of a gay James Bond movie (Thunderballs, anyone?), but a Bond movie nonetheless.

On a sunny day, with the top down, the MG is a joy to drive. It’s not fast by any means, but it handles curves and turns like a cat. It’s perfect for a leisurely drive in the country or, in the case of the Antelope Valley, into the nearby hills.

My drives into the hills are what I call “perspective drives.” While others are racing from Point A to Point B like crazed tenants of an Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm, I’m enjoying the scenery.

I took one of those perspective drives on Saturday. I was feeling a bit blue, thinking of money problems, career issues, and how schools have failed to recognize my wife’s talent, forcing her to be a road warrior adjunct instructor instead of a full-time, tenure-track professional. So that was the frame of mind I was in when I looked at the MG in the carport, ignored recently by Kim, who now has a Miata, and by me, who prefers the roomy cabin of the Fit, especially on cold days.

The MG started right up – it was as if it was eager to be driven. The day was perfect for a drive – sunny, about 70 degrees, with a slight breeze. I headed up to Lake Hughes. Along the way I saw guys in boats on Lake Elizabeth, people out with their dogs, and 20 or so bikers making a mid-day stop at the Rock Inn. It was an idyllic day.

Along the way, I saw the first wildflowers of spring – even a handful of poppies. Parts of the hills were still black from the Station Fire, but here and there patches of green were pushing through the charred earth. It is cliché to say that sight was life-affirming, but just because something is cliché doesn’t mean it’s not true or worth some quiet reflection during a drive.

I think it’s rather impossible to stay blue on a sunny day when you’re driving an MG with the top down. Maybe the MG isn’t so evil after all.