You know you're from Louisiana when...

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I'm from a place that is unlike any other in the world. I was born and raised here, and I intend to live here for the rest of my life. Although I do wish to travel, and see the entire world, I will always come back to my home. And that just so happens to be the great state of Louisiana.

You know you're from Louisiana when...

Your sunglasses fog up when you step outside, even in December.

You reinforce your attic to store Mardi Gras beads.

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 Tabasco.

You sit down to eat boiled crawfish and your host says, "Don't eat the dead ones," and you know what he means.

You push little old ladies out of the way to catch Mardi Gras beads.

Little old ladies push YOU out of the way tocatch Mardi Gras beads.

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 and not a disease.

Your grandparents are called "Mam-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 and it's filled with an alcoholic beverage.

When it starts to rain, you cover your beer instead of your head.

You eat dinner out and spend the entire meal talking about all the other good places you've eaten.

You call home just to find out what yamomm'an'em are having for supper tonight.

The crawfish mounds in your front yard have over taken the grass.

Community Coffee, Haydels, Zapps, K&B, Abita, etc., are essential.

Every so often, you have waterfront property.

When giving directions you use "uptown," "downtown," "backatown," "riverside," "lakeside," "other side of the bayou," or "other side of the levee."

When you refer to a geographical location "way up North'" you are referring to places like Shreveport, Little Rock, or Memphis, where it gets real cold.

You can pronounce Tchoupitoulas, Thibodaux, Opelousas, Pontchartrain, Ouachita and Atchafalaya.

You don't worry when you see ships riding higher in the river than the top of your house.

You judge a poboy by the number of napkins used.

The waitress at your local sandwich shop tells you a fried oyster poboy "dressed" is healthier than a Caesar salad. You agree.

You know the definition of "dressed" and you like your roast-beef poboy sloppy wit debris.

You can eat Popeye's, Haydel's and Zapp's for lunch and wash it down with Barq's and several Abitas, without losing it all on your stoop or banquette.

The four seasons in the year are: Hot, Hot as Hell, Football and Huntin'.

You wrench your hands in the zink with an onion bar to get the crawfish smell off.

You're not afraid when someone wants to acks you something.

You don't learn until high school that Mardi Gras is not a national holiday.

You don't learn until high school what a county is and that other states don't have parishes.

You believe that purple, green, and gold look good together.

You go to buy a new winter coat, what most people would refer to as a windbreaker, and throw your arms up in the air to make sure it allows enough room to catch Mardi Gras beads.

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. Geaux Zephyrs!

You pronounce the largest city in the state as "Nawlins."

You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Louisiana.