That's funny, I don't care who you are...

My Good Ol' Boy Daddy's birthday was coming up. Before I bought his surprise present, I called my Sainted Southern Mother to arrange getting him up here to the RBC Center three weeks later for a show.

We made the arrangements for them to get here and get a hotel room, as the show would end at 11 p.m., well after both their bedtimes.

"Now will Steve be going with him?" my SSM asked.

"I was planning to," I responded.

"Thank God!" she shrieked. "When you said two tickets, I thought you were going to make me go with him."

I got my Daddy and me tickets to the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.

For his actual birthday surprise, I sent my SSM my confirmation e-mail. I asked her to print it out and give it to him when I called to wish him a happy birthday.

"Hang on," he said, after I sang the birthday song over the phone, "your mama's shoving papers in my face." I listened as he read aloud, "Bill Engvall, Jeff Foxworthy and LARRY!" (emphasis his)

"Hey, hey," he chuckled, "this is awesome!"

Last night, after three weeks of anticipation, it was show night. My parents came to Raleigh and had dinner with Steve and me. After dinner, Steve and my SSM breathed collective sighs of relief as my daddy and I set off for the show, rubbing our hands in glee.

We got to the RBC Center, paid $10 to park, got out and looked around for signs to let us know what lot we were in so we could find the car on the way out. There were none. We agreed to remember that Carter-Finley Stadium, where our beloved Wolfpack loses football games (Daddy said it, not me, and he went to State) was at the left and we should just keep walking a long way when we got out.

I gave Pops his ticket and walked in before him. After I walked through the metal detector I said something to him, wondered why he didn't respond, and turned around. There was my Pops, being held up by security over his pocket knife he's had in his pocket for 50 years.

"C'mon, man," he said to the security guy. And they waved him in.

We made our way to our eighth-row, unobstructed seats. "Check it out, Daddy," I said, "We can both see!" "Pfft," Daddy replied, "last time I was here, I had a floor seat." We whiled away the minutes seeing who could read the most names on the retired State jerseys in the rafters. Daddy had Lasik and I just graduated to bifocals. He got two and I got one.

At last, the show started. Watching my daddy laugh until he couldn't catch his breath over Jeff Foxworthy's story about a shotgun wedding where Grandma got so mad she threw her beer on the ground was a moment I want to keep memorized forever. Seeing him do the same thing over one of Larry the Cable Guy's sex jokes will take a lot of therapy to erase.

But it was a blast. I didn't think twice about being the only person in the RBC Center with pink hair. Spending 25 minutes trying to get out of the parking lot in the only car with an Obama/Biden sticker, on the other hand...

It was probably worse for my Pops, being seen in a car with a lib'rul bumper sticker.