Free I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star by Judy Greer Page B

possible to do so. I was fifteen years old, and in Michigan you could sign up for drivers’ ed on your fifteenth birthday. So I did. I took the class, did the driving part, got my permit, and hit the road. It was very important to my dad that I have a lot of driving practice before I went out solo. And I did. My parents were really into road trips, so I drove them all over the Midwest. I drove when we went to visit family in Ohio, I drove to downtown Detroit to Red Wings games, I drove anywhere and everywhere. I learned to drive in our Lincoln Town Car, and to this day that is my dream car. I ride in them often now for work, since they are the go-to car for carservices that get hired to drive actors around because we can’t be trusted to get places on time. And every time I ride in one, I secretly wish I was driving it. It was a lovely car to drive. It was giant. It was comfortable, like driving around your living room, and trust me, if you can parallel park a Town Car, you can pretty much parallel park anything. Once I moved to L.A. with the2 B and got some decent-paying acting jobs, I was urged to lease a car for the write-off. I leased a Ford Explorer (still brand loyal) and decided to donate my fuchsia Escort to a charity. I was going to go with the Red Cross, but a friend told me I should choose a charity that could really use the donation, and people donated millions to the Red Cross every year. Why not choose a local charity that was overlooked? I chose a shelter for battered women in downtown Los Angeles. It seemed like a good one, it was local to L.A., was a great cause, and could, no doubt, use the donation. Well, it turned out it did need the donation, but it also needed someone to figure out what to do with that kind of donation, and unfortunately all I had to offer was the car itself. A man came to my apartment to pick up my car and do the paperwork. I gave him all the papers I could find that said “Escort” on them, signed some of his papers, and that was that.
    A few months passed, and one afternoon a police officer knocked on my door asking if I was the owner of a hot-pink Ford Escort. I could finally say no to that question! Well, it turned out I was lying to the cop because I was still, legally, the owner of that car. The people at the local charity of my choice hadn’t done their part and transferred the title; instead, they left it parked outside somewhere, and it had collected enough unpaid parking tickets that I now had a warrant out for my arrest. It now seems like a miracle that I got that officer to go away that afternoon without me in handcuffs. I explained to him what I had done and produced the documents that showed I had donated the car (anothermiracle that I still had those papers and could find them). I still believe in donating money and stuff to small local charities that really need it, but maybe make sure there is an infrastructure to support the donation as it comes in. I found out after I followed up that the2 B was ultimately sold to a junkyard for parts, and it really depressed me. Still does. It makes me sad for two reasons. One, that the car was just basically wasted. My friend JP moved to L.A. later that year, and I could have just given him the car. He didn’t have one, and you kind of need a car in L.A. And two, that I was so embarrassed of my car that I felt I needed a new one for my new life. But the truth is that that car
was
my life. It was representative of who I was, where I came from, and how much I was loved by my parents. But I wanted to start over. I was in Hollywood, I was an actress, and I thought I was better than that car. Fifteen years later I finally learned that no one is better, especially me, than a hot-pink Escort and a vanity plate painted with love.

My Stupid Trip (Alone) to Spain
    I ’ VE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE THE KIND OF WOMAN who traveled by herself. I loved reading books about adventurous women who would just travel somewhere, anywhere they were