Ready to Take Off -- When It Gets the Chance

2007 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder

Hell begins with small wrongs, many of them self-inflicted. For example, there is the matter of managing time. I've never been good at it, primarily because of greed.

It is not the kind of avarice that engenders pelf. Instead, it is the delusional sort in which I constantly lie to myself about what can be accomplished within a given period.

I try to do too much -- and wind up doing very little. Schedules are ruined. Appointments are postponed or canceled.

That is what happened to me on a recent drive to Philadelphia in the 2007 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder GT. I was supposed to arrive at 6:30 p.m. on a Thursday in time for dinner with two lovely women of the automobile industry. It was a beautiful day, and I had a fast and nimble car. I figured I could leave my home in Northern Virginia and make it to Philadelphia with time to spare. I set about doing other things. I left my driveway at 3:30 p.m.

In retrospect, my thinking made no sense. But delusion obscures clarity and renders the impossible possible. I thought the roads north would be reserved for me and the tight little Spyder GT -- on a day and at a time when Interstate 95 and its many tributaries normally are jammed with traffic. I entered the roadway without a backup plan, or an exit strategy. I got stuck.

At least the weather and the Spyder GT's essential design should have provided ample warning. Yes, it was a bright, clear day -- in the middle of winter. The Spyder GT is a roadster with an automatically retractable cloth top. But, despite the sunshine, it was too cold to lower the car's roof.

And so there I was planted in the middle of the Capital Beltway, and later in the petrified traffic of Interstate 95, in a fast roadster with its top up and its engine idling, a motorized purgatory in which the Gods of Surface Transportation were making sport of me.

There was nothing to do except appreciate the irony, and be grateful that the test car came with Mitsubishi's optional five-speed automatic Sportronic Transmission instead of the Spyder GT's standard six-speed manual setup. There is nothing more frustrating than shifting the gears of a sports car, essentially going from first to second and back, in traffic that isn't going anywhere.

Two-and-a-half hours after leaving Northern Virginia, I made it to Delaware, where I enjoyed a bit of a free-flowing reprieve. The Spyder GT's 260-horsepower V-6 engine came back to life. Its front-drive wheels turned and pulled the small car ahead with vigor.

I was thinking: "Free at last!" But the gods were not done punishing me. Indeed, they seemed determined to add insult to injury by filling the roads going into Chester, Pa., and Philadelphia with chain-laden souls condemned to wander in the passing lanes on the left. There was no getting around them. They were implacable, impassable obstructionists.

I got to the restaurant in center-city Philadelphia at 8 p.m., 90 minutes late. My hosts were forgiving. But even then the gods weren't done messing with me.

One of the valet parking people admired the Spyder GT: "Hey, that's the new one!" he said. "Nice ride. You must be having a good time driving that one!"

"Oh, I'm having a helluva time," I said, privately vowing never again to fool around when I have miles to go and appointments to keep.