Who is that mysterious woman behind the wheel of that sporty Mazda Miata?

Could it be ... me?

Whenever I rent a car, I ask the counter attendant if they have any good deals on upgrades. Hey, for a couple of bucks more you can live out one of your Walter Mitty fantasies and goose your flagging middle-aged ego.

One time I rented a Lincoln Navigator, sailing down H-1 like Cleopatra's barge on the River Nile. I got the thrill of commanding a monster SUV for a weekend without the guilt of actually owning one of the gas guzzlers.

Another time it was a Jeep Wrangler. Before leaving the airport lot, I removed the soft top, pulled my hair into a sassy ponytail and topped it with a baseball cap, posing as an outdoor-loving sportswoman. That was fun until I made the freeway on-ramp and got slammed by a downpour, with no possibility of stopping to reassemble the top. Blast the outdoors! I wouldn't have been able to manage it anyway; brain surgery has got to be easier than putting a Jeep soft top back together.

Don't know what got into me on a recent trip to Honolulu, but I cruised out of the airport in a spiffy 2006 Miata convertible.

OK, I know exactly what got into me. Hubby had been left at home, and I was "single" in the city for a couple of days to attend my son's soccer tournament. I rationalized the sexy upgrade by telling myself the 12-year-old would get a kick out of tooling around in a sports car. But seeing that he spent nearly the entire trip at the Waipi'o soccer complex or sequestered in a hotel with his teammates, I wasn't fooling anybody.

My name is Christie and I am a midlife cliche. I binged on sleek steel and fake wood paneling to escape the humdrum world of sensible sedans and mommy minivans. The car manufacturer had me pegged, too, equipping the Miata with a six-speed automatic transmission that allows you the option of shifting gears manually without a clutch pedal. How cool is that? Working that stick was really fun, until it got old, like pretty quickly, in the stop-and-go city traffic.

To up the glamour quotient, I wrapped a silky scarf around my head and wore oversized sunglasses like Audrey Hepburn in "Two for the Road." All that was missing was a cute, young Italian guy named Carlo in the passenger seat.

Sadly, I more resembled Katherine Hepburn in "On Golden Pond" when it came time to crawl out of the tiny car, whose hood came up to my knees. It was impossible to make a graceful or dignified exit.

Before returning the car to the airport, I had a friend take photos of me waving "Ciao!" from behind the wheel. Then I checked the car back in and checked myself back in to my sensible, mommy life. Perhaps not as exciting as a road-hugging, high-performance model, but definitely a smoother ride, with ample leg room for the long haul.

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.