It's not often that Patti and I make plans to visit my family in Florida, mostly because Florida is a boring sweat-hole. Before the trip, my mom said that she got everyone tickets for Dolly Parton. Patti or I don't seek out Dolly's music, but we thought it would be fun to watch her belt out some songs. You know, for free.

On the night of the show my mom advised us to, "Bring a sweater. It gets cold during the ice skating part." There are so many red flags in that statement that I don't even know where to begin. For starters, a sweater might make sense in any other state, but we were in Florida. It was, like, 80 degrees outside. At night. And secondly, ice skating? "I thought we were going to see Dolly Parton?"

"We are," my mom said. Then my dad pulled into the parking lot of Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede , a dinner show endorsed by Dolly Parton for people who are easily entertained when watching CBS. Upon entering The Dixie Stampede Pavillion, we were seated around an arena of fluffy dirt. The emcee for the evening declared that one half of the arena was the North and my half was the South. I didn't need two rounds of ostrich racing (seriously, not a joke) to tell me which side was going to win this competition.

Patti and I legitimately thought we were going to see Dolly Parton in concert, which wasn't ideal to begin with, but I certainly would have fought against seeing the tourist seated next to me ride around the arena on a horsie-stick (again, I wish I was joking).

The event was billed as a four course meal, which is a very loose definition of the term:

Course One: Biscuit
Course Two: Cornish Game Hen
Course Three: One slice of pork
Course Four: Corn on the Cob with Baked Potato

Luckily I ordered the veggie plate so I was given a fork with my pasta. Everyone else ate out of a trough. Oh, and I almsot forgot:

Course Four and 1/2: Two Glasses of Beer

The beer was like somebody filled up a pitcher with ice cubes, added light beer, drank the light beer real fast, let the ice cubes melt, and then poured the liquid into my glass. I'm not sure that Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede was doing anyone a favor by enforcing sobriety.

Just when I thought I had seen it all, an ice rink small enough to fit in my shed dropped from the ceiling. Two ice skaters held hands and swirled in a circle, because, what else do they have room for, really? I looked at my mom, who shivered. Me, too, mom. Me too.