You’d have to know my husband, Gregory, to adequately understand the full depth and gravity of what I am about to tell you, but I shall nevertheless try my best to provide you with all the details you’ll need to properly appreciate it anyway.

First of all, Gregory is Jewish. Not necessarily nebbishy, but certainly more nebbishy than butch. He is an intellectual who was borne to upper-middle-class intellectuals — Harvard-educated, Nobel Prize-nominated, National Academy of Sciences lifetime membership sort of intellectuals. He himself has a Masters in Music Composition from Cal Arts. He loathes the heat, the sun, and most outdoor activities. He is most happy when drinking a cup of really good coffee and reading The New Yorker…or savoring a David Lean epic…or aimlessly wandering through Shakepeare and Company with me when we are in Paris. He looks like Gene Wilder. He is left-handed — and all that that implies. Aside from the swanky background, the formal education, and the bloodline of The Royal House of David that courses through his tender, Hebrew veins — he is the male equivalent of me.

He doesn’t like Budweiser, deer hunting, or Hank Williams, Jr. He has never watched — much less actually attended — a NASCAR race. This is a man who thinks that Dick Trickle is the symptom of a really nasty STD…not a championship race car driver at Talledega who is sponsored by STP. He has the supple, genteel hands of a concert pianist — not someone who pumps gas or cranks wrenches for a living. Trust me, the only camshaft this man pulls is his own — and that’s only to somewhat artsy nude black and white photos of indie-type girls with no make-up, messy bobbed hair, and unshaven pits; no cheesy, teased, bleached Frederick’s of Hollwood dames named Misti in red, satin, crotchless panties for this old boy.

So, with that said…yesterday my sweet husband with the soft hands and sharp intellect arrived in Denver on business for his tech company. He was most likely wearing one of his really nice Brooks Brothers button down shirts and a pair of their fine, flat-front khakis. He probably stood around waiting for his luggage whilst wearing his gorgeous, old school penny loafers…and then walked those down to the Avis desk, where the car that had been rented for him was waiting. He signed the papers, got the keys, and lugged himself and his bags out to the vehicle, probably eager to get to his hotel suite, check his email, watch “The Daily Show”, and relax a bit. I imagine that he walked confidently through the brisk, snow-swirled Rocky Mountain air…to his waiting car.

It was only then he must’ve realized that, he — my husband, the love of my life, the artistic, highly aesthetically discriminating, intellectual elitist Charles Emerson Winchester Bostonian bastard that he is — would be driving all over the greater Denver area for the next four days…in a MOTHERFUCKING PT CRUISER.

(cue the music!)

We’ll get some overhead lifters, and four barrel quads, oh yeah
Keep talkin’, whoah keep talkin’
Fuel injection cut off, and chrome plated rods, oh yeah
I’ll get the money, I’ll see you get the money
With a four-speed on the floor, they’ll be waitin’ at the door
You know that ain’t shit when we’ll be gettin’ lots of tit in greased lightnin’

We’ll get some purple French tail lights and thirty-inch fins, oh yeah
A palomino dashboard and duel muffler twins, oh yeah
With new pistons, plugs, and shocks, I can get off my rocks
You know that I ain’t braggin’, she’s a real pussy wagon – greased lightnin’!

I have never laughed so hard in my fucking life, and I am beginning to believe there just may be a god, after all – and that he exists solely to entertain irreverent pricks like me.

Honey, you are my sweet middle-aged Danny Zuko, and she really is a pussy wagon. Have fun and don’t break any hearts.

Oh, and hurry home to us…we miss you.