This is the last installment recapping my trip to Florida. The other days have been added previously in chronological order. Now I have a lot of diaries to catch up with.

Travel day. Tom and I had the same flight back to Newark, but different morning agendas. He used his voucher for the continental breakfast at the hotel while I had a Krisy Kreme craving to satisfy. His rental car agency was located at the airport; mine was a couple of miles away (last time I do that; it�s just not worth it). I saw him in the lobby of the hotel a little before 9 a.m. and said I�d see him at the airport. I did, but a lot more happened in the next two and a half hours than I expected.

I made the U-turn on U.S. 19 and exited onto Gulf-To-Bay Blvd. heading west, the opposite direction of the airport. It was dead on 9 a.m., so I figured all the traffic was residual rush-hour congestion. Only it took 20 minutes to go the one block from the 19 merge to Old Coachman (Ave., St., whatev.). That�s because police had blocked off Gulf-To-Bay beyond Old Coachman because of some sort of accident cleanup half a mile down the road, and both lanes of traffic were forced north or south onto Old Coachman, with the two right lanes alternatively going north and the left-turn lane going south. I finally filled the car up with gas and made it to Krispy Kreme, but I was already annoyed and found myself muttering under my breath at the grandmother and grandson watching the donuts being made as if they were at the U.S. Mint watching sheets of $100 bills roll by. (I admit, it was interesting. I�d never seen it done before, but the donuts float in what must be a light glaze, then are flipped to turn the other side golden and leave that light strip across the middle. Then they are lifted out of the water and roll on a conveyor belt through a waterfall of glaze.) The woman took a box for my two donuts and plucked them right off the belt after they�d gone through the glazefall. When I ate one in the car, I was at first startled by its warmth, then mesmerized by its sugary goodness.

I saved the other one for later. My plan had been to bring the donuts to one of the turnouts along the Courtney Campbell Causeway on Tampa Bay. I figured I had time, I might as well enjoy the morning. But the delay made me too hungry, so I ate one and saved the other.

About three-fourths of the way across the causeway, just over the bridge that allows boats to pass through, I turned off at a traffic light onto a side road with nothing more than a sandy turnout. I pulled over, grabbed my box of donut and bottle of milk, and sat on the hood looking south over the bay. My plan was to reach the rental agency by 10:30 a.m. so that I�d be at the airport by 11 for my 12:55 p.m. flight. So at 10:15, I stood up and went to open the car door.

My hand slipped and I stumbled backwards. �Shit!� I said, then tried it again. Locked. �No no no NO!� I screamed. �FUCK!�

Yep, I locked the key in the car. All week long, I�d diligently and alertly only closed the door when I was aware of the key in my hand or pocket. My Chevy Cavalier was so basic, it lacked a tape deck, power windows and power locks. So each door had to be locked by hand, and I�d been sure to lock every one the first day and rarely opened them. Because it was a hot morning and I was in jeans, I�d had the air conditioning on. It felt good out of the car in the breeze, but I didn�t want to sweat before getting on a plan and squeezing in next to a stranger. So my windows were all rolled up tight. I left the key in the ignition not wanting to lose it on the �beach� and knowing I wasn�t going anywhere than right outside the car. I didn�t even intentionally lock the door -- I must�ve hit it when pushing it open or removing my hand from the handle.

No worries, though. It was early enough and I�d left plenty of extra time to get to the airport. I called AAA and got a woman who didn�t sound like she knew the area. �I�m on a turnout along the Courtney Campbell Causeway,� I told her. �Are you at the boat ramp?� she asked. �No,� I said, �I�m in a nondescript parking lot along the water.� A moment later I looked across the road and saw the boat ramp on the other side, the northern side.

�Are you at the beach,� she asked, naming the beach. I told her I wasn�t at any beach, that there was no beach. �Well, I don�t know of any parking lots along the Campbell other than the beach.� I insisted there were others, that I was at one with a traffic light -- the only light along the causeway, I thought (and was right about) -- and that it was the first one after the bridge when driving east (and the last before it when going west). She said someone would be there within 45 minutes.

I called Tom to see where he was (almost at the airport) and he considered driving back. �I could put a rock through the window,� he said. I replied, �I considered that.� But when I said AAA was coming, he said he�d check the flight to see if it was booked and when the next one was, just in case.

Five minutes after I hung up with Tom (at 10:20), the locksmith called to ask where I am. �They told us you were at the Campbell and Rocky Point [Road], but they didn�t say where,� he said. I explained my location, and he knew it. �We�ll be there in about 15 minutes,� he said.

Perfect, I thought. That would be around 10:40, 10:45, and I�d be at the rental agency by 11. I started looking around on the ground again for something that might help (I�d already tried the back end of a metal spoon and my old AAA card -- what a story that would be: �Yeah, AAA helped me get into my locked car. No, not a mechanic, the plastic membership card.�) A plastic fork didn�t help either. I spent the next few minutes looking out at the bay, turning around and looking at the traffic along the causeway and across to the boat ramp. I stood in the shade of some palm trees to get out of the sun and called Casey�s cell phone to tell her what a dolt her boyfriend was. (It was off and I left a message without going into any detail.)

Then, five minutes before the locksmith arrived, I found Bad Thing No. 3 (they say they always come in threes, and this was the third, after the traffic and the key locked in the car). My right rear tire was soft. Very soft. I pressed it, and it gave, a lot. The worst part was I couldn�t start changing it while I waited because the trunk was locked! The locksmith arrived, made some crack about the tire and inside of a minute had the right rear door open. I thanked him and let him leave without a tip for the remark and opened the front passenger door and pulled the key out of the ignition. I took my suitcase out of the trunk and opened the panel to get the spare tire out. I remembered watching the Duke cousins time how fast it took to change flats on the General Lee and looked at my watch. I wasn�t nearly as seasoned as they were and didn�t have equipment anywhere near as good, but I was done in about 15 minutes. And sweaty. So much for that. And what would I see immediately after clearing security at the airport? A Krispy Kreme stand. I wouldn�t have had to sit through traffic; I wouldn�t have stopped along the causeway and locked my key in the car; and I likely wouldn�t have gotten a flat, or at least I would�ve made it to the rental agency on the tire.

The rest of the day went smoothly in comparison, though slow old people -- slow people of all ages, in fact -- annoyed the hell out of me the rest of the day. Enough slowness back at Newark prevented me from taking the 4:08 train by two minutes, so I had to wait half an hour until the 4:44 pulled in.

I rode the rails back to Little Silver, had dinner with the family and left my dirty laundry in the hamper in my room for me to attend to this weekend. A little after 8 p.m., after calling Casey�s apartment and getting Justine at home (Casey worked late), I left in the rain for Jersey City and was able to relax the rest of the night until Casey came home.

Now I just have to write all these damn stories for which I spent a week in Florida conducting interviews and gathering facts. But at least baseball season is less than a week away.