Overall, though, it's the bigness of the car that counts the most. Because when something bad happens in a really big car— accidentally speeding through the middle of a gang of unruly young people who have been taunting you in a drive-in restaurant, for instance-it happens very far away-way out at the end of your fenders. It's like a civil war in Africa; you know, it doesn't really concern you too much. On the other hand, when something happens in a little bitty car it happens right in your face. You get all inrolved in it and have to give everything a lot of thought. Driving around in a little bitty car is like being one of those sensitive girls who writes poetry. Life is just too much to bear. You end up staying a home in your bedroom and thinking up sonnets that don't get published till you die, which will be real soon if you keep driving aound in little bitty cars like that.

PJ O’Rourke: “How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink.”

(Originally published in National Lampoon, anthologised in “Republican Party Reptile”)