As an editor at a luxury magazine, my job comes with several perks, such as interviewing famous women who have no interest in dating me, visiting exotic locales I'll never return to and generally impersonating a standard of living I have no hope of ever achieving myself.

One of the greatest perks yet was the opportunity to drive a brand new Lamborghini Superleggera, a 530-horsepower, V10 space shuttle of a car, capable of hitting 60 mph in under four seconds.

When the car arrived from the dealership, a crowd of men had already gathered, some with camera phones in hand, waiting to see what was going to come out of the 18-wheeler with "LAMBORGHINI" inconspicuously emblazoned down its side.

Most men pine their entire lives for the chance to get into a car like this, but I felt like a jittery virgin on the big night.

Up until this point the fastest thing I'd ever driven was my parents' Nissan Altima, which makes this weird rattling noise when it gets near 70 mph. This was one reason why I was terrified to get behind the wheel, the other being that this car costs $220,000 and I was just borrowing it.

After a few minutes of actual driving I felt like I was getting the hang of it, to the point of genuine cockiness ... until I almost sideswiped a van, that is.

The next day I took the "rocket ship" (as I began to refer to it) up to my hometown for both showing off and safekeeping. While on I-95, and now in daylight, I realized the other discomforting aspect of this car: the gawking. All I wanted to do was punch through a few gears and burn some gas, but suddenly I felt like the beauty queen in a Fourth of July parade.

Passersby crowded alongside or in front of me, sticking cameras out windows or just waving like mad to get my attention. Grown men were reduced to giddy school children who didn't even attempt to hide their excitement.

Over the course of the weekend I got waves, thumbs up, enthused jumping, all manner of affirmations shouted and, most embarrassingly, a gentleman who dropped to his knees in the middle of Park Avenue to give a full-on "Wayne's World" "We're not worthy!" bow.

Women, on the other hand, feigned aloofness until the very last second when they would snap their heads around for a look at who was in the driver's seat.

But my favorite moment with the car came when a neighbor boy rode by. Around 8 or 9, he could have been me in the early '80s, with his BMX bike and a baseball cap that seemed to consume his head, like those kids in Shriners ads.

He circled our periphery until I called out to him, "It's OK if you want to take a look." He cautiously glided over. "Is that your car?" he asked, more genuinely amazed than incredulous.

"Uh, yes. Yes it is."

He paused for a moment and then said, "Are you an astronaut?"

To this day I'm still amazed that the gold standard of success for American boys remains the astronaut and not a rapper, professional athlete or Greek shipping magnate, though his follow-up made more sense. ("Stock broker?")

I still feel bad for telling him the truth, as he's going to get a hell of rude awakening when he goes looking for publishing jobs in 2020.

Upon returning to Manhattan, a homeless woman approached me at a stoplight. "WOW! That's a nice car!" she proclaimed. "Don't see too many of those around!" The compliment seemed genuine, and not just a setup for the inevitable sales pitch, but none was necessary. When you're driving a Lamborghini, what are you going to say? "Sorry! Never seem to have any cash on me! Bad habit!"

Exhausted, I returned the Lambo to its parking garage and went home. The next day another rep from the dealership stopped by for the pickup. "So what did you think?" he asked, "Did you have a good time?" I did, in fact, have a good time, I told him as I handed over the keys. I had a great time ... and I couldn't be more relieved that it was finally over.

Michael B. Dougherty is an Asylum contributor whose first and only car was a 1985 Mercury Topaz.