Memorial Day. Following our usual tradition, the Professor drove to Louisville and I flew. We saw some friends in Louisville, drove up to the Indy 500, and back to Louisville. My flight home was early Monday morning. I went down to breakfast and let the Professor sleep in.

When I got back to the room, my key didn't work. Oh great, maybe they already cancelled it. Or maybe I had it next to my cell phone. Well, I'll swipe it again. Still no luck. Start knocking on the door. "Prof? Let me in!" Swipe. Knock. Call. Swipe. Knock. Call.

Finally, I hear a voice: "Just a minute." One small problem: it's not the Professor's voice. Now I look at the number on the door and realize I'm on the wrong floor.

I moved so fast down that hallway that I probably left flames in my wake. I heard the door open just as I turned the corner.

I didn't do it. He can't prove it. And, anyway, no one saw me.

Remember when you were a kid and your friends would throw impossible choices at you: "Which would you rather do, burn to death or freeze to death?" "Kiss a porcupine or eat a worm?"

I have a confession to make. Absurd as it sounds, I worry that some day my two greatest fears will combine into an impossible choice.

Fear One is that my car will careen off the road, crash through a bridge, and end up in deep water. I have read all the helpful hints about how you have to wait until the water has covered the car and the pressure equalizes so you can open the door. I have even tried visualizing it, in the same way pilots train for disasters. Usually I get as far as the water coming in the car before I turn into a babbling idiot who has to be distracted from those thoughts with shiny objects.

Fear Two is alligators. They are fast and they can swallow things whole. While most gators are on the small side, 4 - 6 feet long, and only big enough to swallow small dogs and small children, a 15 - 18 foot gator could swallow me.

When I drive from Houston to Louisiana, which I do fairly often, about 45 minutes of the drive is spent on one incredibly long bridge which goes through the Atchafalaya River Basin and Swamp. I am so careful driving through here in hopes that I will never end up sitting in my sinking car, waiting for the pressure to equalize, and then noticing a huge alligator hanging around in anticipation of my opening the door.

A couple of weeks ago I was having a conversation with a survivalist sort from Louisiana -- a fisher, trapper, hunter and gatherer all rolled into one. I confessed my fear to him, hoping he would laugh and put my worries to rest. Instead, he said "Yeah, you're right, a splash the size a car would make would bring the 18 footers out to take a look. You can slap the smaller ones on the nose [can you visualize slapping an alligator!], but you wouldn't be any match for the big ones."

How about if I just kiss the porcupine AND eat the worm?