I found myself acting like the most stereotypical teenager in a Beach Boys song last week, begging my dad for his car keys with big sad puppydog-eyes and angelically promising to drive very, very carefully. And I’m almost 30 years old.

In all fairness, though, my dad’s new car is totally worth every bit of begging I did.
It’s a 2008 Mustang convertible, painted a glorious sparkly deep red color, with a top that goes down and a stereo volume knob that goes up.

And my dad let me drive it.

Driving a Mustang convertible is like being a rock star, without the annoying paparazzi and drug addictions. On the way to the YMCA, a small boy I’d never seen before called out “Nice car!” and I waved and yelled “Thanks!”

Three people turned positively green with envy and asked me if I’d gotten a new car. I told them the car was my dad’s mid-life cri-sis car, even though he’s actually been talking about buying a Mustang convertible since he was a teenager, which was definitely not the middle of his life.

For some reason, at this point in all three conversations, the other person said, incredulously, “And he let you drive it?”

Yes, he did.

And yes, I did drive that Mustang, cranking the top down and the music up at every possible opportunity for a week. I played the Beach Boys and the Beatles, the Travelling Wilburys and the Go-Gos and generally pretended to be one of those cool people who drive cars like that.

I tended to arrive at my destination with a big stupid grin and my hair standing straight up, Einstein-style, but the car was so darn fun to drive that I didn’t care.

In fact, I had fun, fun, fun, ‘til my daddy took the Mustang away.