It wasn't by choice. It was through a comedy of errors that I ended up driving topless. To my surprise, I found it to be truly exhilarating.

We flew into Dallas on Thanksgiving Day, excited that we would be attending my son's four-day ice hockey tournament. Everything went well until we went to the counter to pick up the rental SUV I had reserved months in advance. When beads of nervous sweat started to form on the upper lip and brow of the young man behind the rental counter, I knew something wasn't right. As he nervously excused himself to go into the back room, I turned to my husband and said, "He doesn't have our car. I can feel it."

When the young man finally returned, his eyes moved slowly from my unusually tall husband to my unusually tall teenage sons, and then he gave a pain-filled glance toward all our luggage. My son's hockey bag alone was large enough to hold a small human. The young man seemed to wince in anticipation of the impending "unhappy customer" tirade as he finally spit out what I already knew: "I'm sorry, there has been a mistake and we don't have any more SUVs, or minivans, or anything large. I do have a luxury Volvo sedan if you would like."

When he showed us the lovely yet extremely compact blue car, I laughed out loud. "I'm sure, if we pushed really hard, we might be able to wedge everyone in there," I said, "but where do you suggest we put our luggage?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but it is Thanksgiving Day, and we are all out of cars. We only have this car and that convertible Mustang over there."

I turned my head, and there it sat -- a 2006 candy apple-red Mustang GT convertible. Things were looking up.

"We'll take them both," I said. "For the single price of the SUV I had reserved."

Within minutes, the contracts were signed, and we were handed two sets of keys. While my conservative husband happily drove off with one of my sons in the sky-blue Volvo, I settled into the Mustang with my other son. With a push of a button, the rear windows rolled down automatically as the roof retracted with a barely audible hum.

The only sound I heard clearly was the one-word exclamation that came from the mouth of my 16-year-old son. Impressed, all he could utter was "Woah!"

Driving a convertible changes you. As soon as the top went down and the sunglasses went on, the mild-mannered Southern California mother went out the window. I was a cool chick in a red Mustang convertible driving on Texas' streets and freeways, the wind whipping through my hair. I was Super Mom.

According to one Epinions.com author with the screen name mattjoe, "You are inherently cooler when driving a convertible." The article goes on to say that the bottom line about driving any convertible is that, "You'll be cool, `the bomb,' `PHAT,' and `stylin'."

I couldn't have said it better myself.