Traveling for a living has its pitfalls, but the people who remain at home can also face some difficult situations.

In the days before cell phones, once I left the house I was often out of contact with Judy for many hours. If an emergency arose, she had to deal with it.

I left the house in New Jersey early one fall morning in the mid-80's and headed for Newark Airport and a trip out to the West Coast. About 30 minutes after I left, the phone rang and Judy answered.

Judy, as she always does, said, "Hi!" A quietly eerie voice at the other end of the line said, "Is your husband home?"

She said, "No. He's not here," and the voice rose and said, "I know he's not there. I'm an escaped prisoner from Rahway Prison and I have him bound and gagged."

Judy knew the infamous prison in Rahway, NJ, was on one of the several routes I took to the airport and her heart began beating very fast. But she didn't want to get into a dialogue with the person on the phone without finding help, so she said, "You have the wrong number" and hung up.

"I figured, if he really had you, he'd call back," Judy told me later.

She then raced to my business phone in the other room and called our neighbor, who she called "Paula Perfect" because she did everything so well. Judy told her about the phone call and the neighbor laughed and said, "Oh, that's been going around."

Judy then called the Westfield police and the officer who answered said, "He must be up to the H's in the phone book. Don't worry. It's just some kook making prank phone calls."

I finally called home from Riverside, CA, around 8 p.m. eastern time and Judy sounded unusually relieved to hear my voice. After hearing about the phone call, I understood her trepidation. From then on, I called home more often during the day, just in case.

On a much lighter note, I once left the house in NJ for a three-week trip to Daytona Beach, FL, as a severe snowstorm bore down on the east coast. Judy tried to talk me into staying home until the storm passed, but I was determined to try to fly out of Newark before the storm hit to make sure I was in Florida to begin my coverage of the Daytona 500.

As luck would have it, I flew out of Newark on the last flight allowed to leave before the airport shut down.

When I called home that evening from Florida, the reception was about as cold as the weather in New Jersey.

"Did the storm hit?" I asked. "Yes!" Judy said, icily.

"Are you and the kids okay?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't we be?" she replied. "I've been outside shoveling for the past two hours and I'm about to go out again. So I'm getting off now."

There was a click and the line went dead and I thought, "Wow! She's really upset."

I had no idea she was planning her revenge.

I had taken a limo to the airport that morning, leaving my car in our garage and Judy's car in the driveway.

Our driveway abutted against our neighbor's driveway, which meant there was no place to throw the snow from in between the houses. You had to carry the snow to the front or the back of the houses to pile it up in the yard.

Judy decided a fitting punishment for me running away before the storm was to pile as much snow as possible in front of the garage so that, when I arrived back home, I would have to shovel to get the car out. I'm sure if there were cell phones back then, she would have sent me a picture of the mountain of snow piled in front of the garage door.

The storm passed and so did Judy's anger. We were back to saying, "I love you" before we hung up and Judy and the kids flew to Daytona the day after the race to spend the next week with me in the warm weather.

We visited Disney World and spent plenty of time by the hotel pool and in the ocean. But, as the time came to leave, Judy, smiling happily, said she had a surprise for me when we got home.

As we flew toward Newark, I caught her glancing toward me with a bit of smirk and wondered what this surprise could possibly be.

When we got to the airport in New Jersey, the weather had turned unseasonably mild. But Judy was sure that huge pile of snow awaited me.

I saw her disappointment when the limo pulled into our driveway and she realized that huge pile of snow was gone, the entire driveway clear and dry.

When we got in the house, she told me, rather ruefully, about the "surprise" I was supposed to have found.

"Oh well," she said. "I probably would have helped you shovel the car out anyway."

There was another trip to Daytona Beach when things didn't work out so well for any of us.

Back in the 80's, the International Motor Sports Association held a sports car race at Daytona International Speedway on Thanksgiving weekend. I was scheduled to cover the race and didn't want to miss Thanksgiving with the family, so I took them along.

It was in the 30's with gray, overcast skies when we left Newark. Sunny skies and unseasonably high temperatures in the 80's greeted us in Daytona. We were all thrilled until we found out the airline had misplaced our luggage.

We were all dressed for winter and sweltering in the Florida heat.

Ever the optimist, I said, "Don't worry. We'll go to a store and buy what we need."

But I forgot it was Thanksgiving Day. Nothing was open but drugstores and the ubiquitous souvenir stores.

We bought toiletries from a drugstore and, much to the delight of the kids, we stopped in one of the souvenir stores and bought tee shirts and shorts. I don't remember the rest, but Judy's new tee short had Chinese characters on it and the word FLORIDA underneath.

She thought that was pretty cool since she had been studying some Chinese writing.

We were invited to a Thanksgiving dinner that evening, hosted by IMSA officials at one of the hotels along the oceanfront. And we were the only people there wearing jeans and tee shirts.

Although I explained about our lost luggage, we wound up sitting at a table by ourselves and pretty much ignored by everyone. It was not exactly the festive Thanksgiving I had hoped for.

The luggage finally showed up the next day and the rest of the trip went smoothly.

The next summer, Judy was wearing her "FLORIDA" tee shirt when she volunteered at a school bake sale. Josie Ho, who was born in China and was the mother of one of Lanni's classmates, was also volunteering.

Josie is now one of Judy's best friends, but they barely knew each other at the time and Josie kept staring at the tee shirt.

Finally, Judy turned to Josie and said, "This doesn't say Florida, does it?"

Josie, who is a very kind woman, smiled and said, "No."

Totally embarrassed, Judy cringed and asked, "What does it say?"

Josie smiled and said, "Ne Va Da!"

They both began to laugh.

The next week, Judy took the tee shirt to a local shop and had them imprint Nevada under Florida. She also had them put a check box next to the name of each state, with a check in the box next to Nevada.

We still have that shirt tucked away in a box of old clothes that Judy doesn't want to get rid of.