Don't go left, the moon's right there.

If I'm ever chosen to be on "Amazing Race," I will most certainly never be heard from again.

And if I'm asked to choose teams, I have one friend in particular I wouldn't pick if I needed to get out of the Sahara asap. No offense, Friend.

My wedding ring came in today, and I haaaad to go get it now because, duh, you don't just leave your wedding ring in the hands of complete strangers, even if they are diamondologists (real word). Or jewelry store clerks. Whichever. You just don't do it.

I asked my friend to go along, and she agreed, and we gossiped and laughed all the way to about Neenah (this is about 10 minutes from Oshkosh). Then we stopped. I mean, the car stopped. We were still laughing. But from Neenah to Appleton, we were given the chance to watch brake lights in a single-file line, as far as my eyes could see.

I love construction. Sigh.

After picking up my ring, we decided to avoid the identically slow traffic in the southbound lane by taking what we thought was the frontage road.

Uh. It wasn't.

And that map in my car that I thought was a Wisconsin map? It's for Toledo. Suddenly, flashbacks of me getting a free map from the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles last year came back, as I watched myself put the Wisconsin map IN THE KITCHEN JUNK DRAWER. Because when I am lost in the kitchen, I need to turn to my kitchen junk drawer to help me get back on track.

But, like the girl scouts I don't think either of us were, we said "Oh, well, the sun's that way (pointing right). We'll go this way (pointing straight ahead)." But roads curved. Roads ended. Roads went under 41, beside 41 and finally abandoned 41 altogether.

We were passing cows (in the dairy state, of all places), a lot of new houses out in the middle of nowhere, and then signs for the Town of Clayton. Clayton? I have no idea where Clayton even is. Then came Winchester. Then Winneconne.

Come on, we thought. How hard can it be in Wisconsin to find your way home? Well. Pretty difficult. My internal compass is broken. Hers seems to follow celestial bodies.

"No, don't turn left," she said, straining her neck to see to the left, then right of a dark road with no apparent signs of life. "The moon's right there."

Um? What do you say to that? I'm pretty sure this is the kind of thinking that got Christopher Columbus stranded in the Caribbean instead of India. But, hey. I'm here, aren't I? Didn't we make it?

I'm just glad I didn't attempt the trip alone. I would still be in Winchester on the side of the road, wishing for cell phone reception, screaming "DAVE! I'm in Winchester. No, I don't know where it is, either. Try Google."