My Beef With Mazda

I'm in favor of a mild degree of spousal mocking - I think it's healthy.

That's why when Penny is going off about paint not transferring correctly through her silkscreen, or the paper store discontinuing her favorite paper, I usually don't resist the temptation to giggle and repeat her complaints in a loving falsetto.

"Yeah!" I say, smiling. "Those dirty, discontinuin' so-and-sos at the paper store ... how dare they?"

Most of the time she drops her scowl and smiles back, but not always. It's a risk I'm willing to take.

And, likewise, when I'm staring out the passenger window at a new Mazda RX-8 and wishing aloud that it were prettier, I don't get bent out of shape when Penelope makes fun of me. That's fair.

I just like pretty cars, okay? When I see a 92-95 RX-7 going down the road - a sadly infrequent event these days - the third generation model, with the swoopy fenders and the double-bubble roof, like the metal is gently shrink-wrapped around the passengers ... or one of those new Cadillac XLRs, the really angular ones with the Corvette motor - or even a Corvette, for that matter; they started looking really nice around the turn of the millenium ... or, say, a 67-72 Chevy C-10 - a shortbed, with a white cab... it makes me happier than I was before.

When somebody releases a new car and it's beautiful, and popular, the quality of my life goes up, because all my driving gets that much more scenic. That's why I wish they'd redesigned the RX-8 a little more to my liking.

Ridicule if you will.