THE BARE NECESSITIES.

There goes my wife, off to work. Topless again. She's been going topless fairly often these days, raising far more than just eyebrows. She started, as she always does, in the spring, when the blossoms slip off their branches to reveal the shapely curve of budding leaves, and the trees bounce and sway with the warm seductive breezes of the approaching summer. Which leads me, in this season of incessant car commercials, to explain why we bought a convertible. We have two kids in one or more of soccer, lacrosse, skating, swimming, skiing, ballet, piano, Irish dance and, I believe this month, lion taming and Esperanto lessons. Why wouldn't we have done the sensible, practical, middle-aged thing, and bought a van or sport utility vehicle instead of buying the soft-top? If I had to, I might argue that by using public transit every working day for over 12 years (thereby reducing greenhouse gasses in the process), I've been a good global citizen, and should be entitled to trade carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol with, say, Namibia or the Falkland Islands. Other than big moments in the lives of our kids, there's little in our predictable, middle-class and middle-aged world that compares to driving down the highway on a sunny June day, top down, wind blowing in our hair, the CD machine blasting out Good Vibrations with the kids singing along for all the van drivers to hear.