I went to Auburn my freshman year, about a two-hour drive southwest of Atlanta. I also had long, heavy, wavy brown hair. I drove a tiny Mazda RX-3, about the size of a large top-loading washer, but it would absolutely haul ass. My friends and I called the car The Blue Flash. (Also, in the south, we frequently say things such as “haul ass” when referring to automobiles.)

I was there summer quarter and embarked on the drive home to Atlanta one stifling hot Friday afternoon after class ended. To achieve maximum horsepower and velocity, the car did not have air conditioning. So I was blasting up I-85 N, boom box in the back seat blaring Rush’s Caress of Steel album on cassette, singing with animated vigor. A car, a Honda if I recall, pulled alongside on my right, with a lovely coed driving and an equal cutie riding shotgun.

Please Don’t, Judge

(If you have seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High, you probably know where this is going.)

To keep my thrashing windswept locks from battering my face while driving, I pulled the majority of it into a wad on top of my head with a big green butterfly clip. So as soon as I looked over and made smiling eye contact, I realized I probably looked like a skinny female meth addict at a laundromat. The Mazda and my pride decelerated as I let the girls drive ahead. I did not throw fish out the window.

Alas, judging from the lonesome loser in this 1973 Mazda RX-3 commercial, nobody got pussy in that car. (For the record, mine was not the wagon. I’m not sure if that helps or hurts my case.)

Hmm…the rotary engine runs so quietly, hot women will deceive you with false affection and sexual provocation in an elaborate ruse to steal your car. Mazda RX-3! See also: BOING! BOING! BOING!

Finally, and we know you’ve been waiting, here’s a cool live 1976 performance by Rush of Caress of Steel’s opening song, Bastille Day, apparently recorded before color movies were invented. (I think the song is about the day the French drove out Johnny Depp.)