You Know You're from Louisiana When...
- Your sunglasses fog up when you step outside, even in December.
- You reinforce you attic to store Mardi Gras beads.
- You don't look twice when you see pink flamingos in yards of nice subdivisions during Mardi Gras.
- You save newspapers, not for recycling but for tablecloths at crawfish boils.
- Your ancestors are buried ABOVE the ground.
- You drink Community Coffee, have tried Starbucks, but don't see what all the fuss is about.
- You take a bite of Five-Alarm Chili and reach for the Tobasco.
- Every once in a while, you have waterfront property.
- You sit down to eat boiled crawfish and your host says, "Don't eat the dead ones," and you know what they mean.
- You don't learn until high school that Mardi Gras is not a National Holiday.
- You push little old ladies out of the way to catch Mardi Gras beads.
- Little old ladies PUSH YOU out of the way to catch Mardi Gras beads.
- You believe that PURPLE, GREEN, and GOLD look good together.
- Your last name isn't pronounced the way it's spelled.
- You know what a nutria is but you still pick it to represent your baseball team.
- Your town is LOW on the education chart, high on the obesity chart, and you DON'T care because you're NO. 1 on the PARTY CHART.
- Your house payment is less than your utility bill.
- You know that Tchoupitoulas is a STREET not a DISEASE.
- Your grandparents are called "Maw-Maw" and "Paw-Paw"
- Your Santa Claus rides an alligator and your favorite SAINT is a football player.
- You cringe every time you hear an actor with a Southern or Cajun accent in a "New Orleans-based" movie or TV show.
- You have to reset your clocks after every thunderstorm.
- You're walking in the French Quarter with a plastic cup of BEER.
- When it starts to rain, you cover your BEER instead of your head.
- You've eaten at one or more of these restaurants, AND know how to pronounce them: Prejeans, Tu Jac's, Gallatoire's, Ralph & Kacoo's, or Mulatte's.
- You have crawfish mounds in your front yard.
- You give directions and use words like "uptown," "downtown," "backatown," "riverside," "lakeside," "other side of the bayou" or "other side of the levee."
- You don't worry when you see ships riding higher in the river than the top of your house.
- You judge a po-boy by the number of napkins used.
- The four seasons in your year are: crawfish, shrimp, crab, and King Cake.
- You "wrench" your hands in the sink with an onion bar to get the crawfish smell off.
- You cringe when people pronounce the largest city in the state as "Nawlins," because only TOURISTS call it that!
- You know those big roaches can fly, but you're able to sleep at night anyway.
- You assume everyone has mosquito swarms in their backyard.
- You realize the rainforest is less humid than Louisiana.
- You discover that you can get a sunburn through your car window.
- When out of town, you stop and ask someone where there is a drive-through Daiquiri place, and they look at you like you have three heads.
- You call tomato sauce "red gravy."
- You fall asleep to the soothing sounds of four box fans.
- No matter where else you go in the world, you are always disappointed in the food.
- You get on a bus marked "Cemeteries" and dont think twice.
- Your first sentence was "Throw me something mistah" and your first drink was from a go-cup.
- You have a parade ladder in your shed.
- You shake out your shoes before putting them on.
- You eat sno-balls instead of throwing them.
- You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Louisiana.
- You meet someone for the first time they tell you their entire family tree, and somehow you are related to their family.