We both had doctor’s appointments in Mt. Airy Friday. Amy first, then me. She wasn’t in the waiting room when I emerged from the doctor’s office.

She also wasn’t in the parking lot. Neither was our SUV.

So I called her cell phone. Voice mail. As usual, it was turned off.

I remembered she wanted to check out a Japanese restaurant near the doc’s office so I walked the two blocks there. Found the restaurant. No Amy. No SUV.

Then I remembered one of my cell phones was charging in the car. It was on so I called it.

“Where are you?” Actually, there was an expletive or two in the question.

“I’m not sure,” came the reply. “I’m right by a Belk’s.”

The only Belk’s in Mt. Airy in in Mayberry Mall, which is nowhere near the doctor’s office or downtown.

“How the hell did you get there?”

“I think I turned right instead of left.”

Our SUV has a GPS unit that has guided us, on more than one occasion, cross country. I suggested, in forceful language, that she use the damn thing.

“I’ll try.” I told her to meet me at the Bluebird Diner. I was hungry and wanted lunch. I walked the remaining three blocks to the Bluebird and settled into a booth where I could watch the street. Halfway through the salad I saw the red Liberty turn into the parking across the street.

And disappear. Oh brother, I thought, she got lost in the parking lot.

Halfway through my pork chop sandwich she came wandering in, explaining the parking lot was just for bank customers and she had to find a spot on the street.

I tried to find out how she went to check out a restaurant two blocks from the doctor’s office and ended up at Mayberry Mall on U.S. 52 — three miles away.

“I found the restaurant but I turned the wrong way when I left the parking lot. When I realized it I tried to go around the block and ended up at the mall.”

Likely story. There’s a reason why my wife has a t-shirt that says “When the going get’s tough, the tough go shopping.”

And it has nothing to do with getting lost.