The alphabet meme: C

is for the car that you drive: Whatever they give me at the rental place.

I haven't owned a car since 1987. It's an unnecessary pain in the neck living and working in Manhattan. My wife had one for a few years, when she was teaching in New Jersey. (It was a Chevy Cavalier. She bought it from a neighbor who was moving out of town. I hated it. Its brakes were horrible and it had more rattles than Toys R Us.) During the school year her schedule made it possible to find parking on the street with only a small amount of difficulty. In the summer she parked it in a garage up in Harlem, right around the corner from the subway--it would cost $500+ a month around where we live.

What I do have, though, is a non-owner's automobile liability insurance policy. It's only $194 a year to cover both of us up to $500,000. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a car but rents or borrows.