Love, Louisiana

You may be born and bred in Louisiana if:
You reinforce your attic to store Mardi Gras beads
Your sunglasses fog up when you step outside
You save newspapers, not for recycling but for tablecloths at crawfish boils
When you give directions you use "lakeside and riverside" not north & south
Your ancestors are buried above the ground.>
You get on a green trolley car to go to the park and a red one to the French Quarter
You take a bite of five-alarm chili and reach for the Tabasco
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 he means
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 leave a parade with footprints on your hands
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
No matter where else you go in the world, you are always disappointed in the food
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 don't show your "pretties" during Mardi Gras
You know that Tchoupitoulas is a street and 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 eat dinner out and spend the entire meal talking about all the other good places you've eaten