"It's fun to drive." That's what my friend told me in an e-mail asking if I'd feed his cat for a week in exchange for the use of his SUV.

I almost responded by getting on my high horse (which, sadly, is my current vehicle) and asking if by "fun" he meant the fun of ruining the environment, increasing the United States' reliance on foreign oil, and making love for hours with unbelievably hot yet dimwitted women in their early 20s who are turned on by you because you have a big car.

But I'm glad I didn't respond that way, because (a) I'm trying to be a nicer person, and (b) goddamn, his SUV is fun.

It honestly had never occurred to me that people buy them not just because they want to piss me off, but for positive reasons - like the fact that when barreling down the street in an SUV, the song "Take the Money and Run" once again sounds unbelievably sweet.

In what is perhaps a rare form of honesty from the car world, my friend's SUV, an Oldsmobile, is actually called a Bravada. (Long gone are the days of an inspiring car-naming division at Oldsmobile; we should probably face up to the fact that it will never give unto the world another "Cutlass.")

Maybe Oldsmobile thought we'd associate "Bravada" with some kind of ancient display of bravery, but, of course, what one really thinks of is the word "bravado," which, of course, conjures up the image of a sweaty man with his gut hanging out, thinking he's a tough guy because he can weave in and out of mall-parking-lot traffic.

Which, coincidentally, was what I was doing in the Bravada this weekend.

As my grandfather always told me: You get a week to act like a jackass, you better take it. And so, I hit the mall in my SUV. Literally. I ran over every Westfield Shoppingtown sign I could find. (After Westfield took over the malls, I felt an inexplicable outpouring of hometown pride for my local mall's old name.)

Actually, for the most part, I drove the Bravada like I would any other car. And what I learned was that obnoxiousness is only a small part of the SUV experience. Silliness - a good silliness, a Steve Miller Band silliness - is what SUVs are really about. The SUV brings back the thrill of driving for driving's sake that you had in high school but which has long since wore off. I'm sure that thrill again wears off, but then, you just go buy a bigger SUV.

That said, the size of the SUV isn't what makes its so great. Indeed, if you're just looking for size in a vehicle, you're much better off with the less-hated minivan. I was in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago, and Dollar Rent A Car set me up with a real nice Dodge Caravan. As I drove other cars off the road, the other drivers, unable to see through my tinted windows, flipped me no birds, as they must have just assumed I was a crazy mom rushing to soccer practice.

No, what is fun about an SUV is being high off the ground without sitting between two people in the front seat of a U-Haul while you move your friend's crap for the fifth time in five years. (Why can't Honda just make a Civic that puts you as high off the ground?)

What's fun is gripping the sort of prickly, sort of sticky steering wheel without having to feel water-filled textured condoms to get the same sensation. (But again, why can't Civics have this steering wheel?)

And, of course, what's especially fun is knowing that the car you're driving would, in any sensible world, be completely illegal and you, the driver of such an unconscionable vehicle, be shot.

(Mark Bazer can be reached at mebazer@yahoo.com.)

(c) 2004 mark bazer, Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.