My mother and I are at a dive bar on University Avenue.
We are highly amused by the patrons – tired middle aged men nursing beers, an overweight woman with thick glasses and short shorts, and a coked-out twitching guy who was sweating profusely.
One of the bar-backs carries a cooler inside.
Mom: “What is that?”
Me: “A cooler.”
Mom: “I know that, but what’s in it?”
Me: “Oh, that’s probably for the meat raffle.”
Mom: “The what?”
Me: “The meat raffle.”
Mom: “Meat raffle?”
Me: “Yes, where you get a ticket and they auction off meat.”
Mom: “THEY DO NOT DO THAT HERE!”
Me: “They…do.”
She then launches from her seat and asks the bar-back if she can take a picture of the cooler full of meat. He’s horribly confused – who doesn’t know what a meat raffle is?
A Miamian, that’s who.
We kept having moments like that throughout the weekend – So many things that are normal in Minnesota are completely alien in Miami, like pull-tabs, beer backs for Bloody Marys, olives in beer, and short Kate Gosselin hair…
