You know you're from N'Awlins if...

The Kahunah is detailing his summer road trip. (Please do go read, but let me point out that that's a bad picture of me. Pale people are not photogenic. Really.) Anyway, reading it has provoked some fond memories for me of growing up in New Orleans and all the funny things that happen to you when you move away or just visit the "real world."

So, you know you're from N'Awlins if...

*You're a grown adult, but you still go nuts every time you see a rock. And you nearly fall to your knees in awe at the sight of rock formations.

*You get altitude sickness on hills and can't quite figure out how to breathe that high up.

*When strange cold, white stuff starts falling from the sky, you quickly scan the horizon for a mushroom cloud. OR You think 3 inches of snow is a blizzard and start worrying about whether you have enough supplies to last a few weeks.

*You're standing in the desert in 114 degree heat and tell people around you that if they think this is hot, they have serious issues. OR You start thinking people in your new city are all a bunch of pansies because they whine about 80% humidity when every one knows it's not worth complaining about until it hits 95%.

*You go out partying and you're morally offended when you find out that you're not allowed to bring your drink with you when you leave a bar. (Public drunkenness shouldn't be a crime! It's our culture, damn it!)

*You try to buy hard liquor from random drug stores, grocery stores and gas stations and are stunned to find out that you can't.

*You're absolutely confused by the fact that your new city has no sex shops, strip clubs or bars that aren't also restaurants. You thought every place had some version of Bourbon Street, even if it was a rundown block or two in some seedy neighborhood. (A friend once asked me what the heck a person's supposed to do if they live where I do and have a "sex toy emergency." What, I may ask, is a sex toy emergency? I'm still trying to figure that out.)

*It takes you months of riding the train to get over your amazement at being able to go UNDER the ground. (Okay, I never quite got over that. It's so fricking cool!)

*You kick yourself for not putting enough spice in the food you made for your new friends and wonder why they've all got tears rolling down their faces.

*You see someone steaming crabs and you gawk at them like they just revealed that they're really from the planet Zirkon and eat human babies for breakfast. (This really happened. This woman "explained" to me that you can't boil seafood and I started checking for extra arms.)

*You have to stop yourself from going off on the wait staff because you see "Cajun" food on the menu and you know damned well that that crap is not fucking Cajun. Get it? Stop calling that flavorless red goop Cajun and no, you can't just "blacken" random shit and think you're fucking Paul Prudhomme. Assholes! And where the fuck is the hot sauce anyway? No, this bland crap is not hot sauce! It's colored water!

Okay, I think that's it for now. Anyone else got some, put it in the comments.