You know you are from Louisiana if...

* The crawdad mounds in your front yard have overtaken the grass.

* Every so often, you have waterfront property.

* When giving directions you use words like "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"!

* Your burial plot is six feet over rather than six feet under.

* You've ever had Community Coffee.

* You can pronounce Tchoupitoulas but can't spell it. (also, Thibideaux, Opelousas, Ponchartrain, Ouachita, Atchafalaya,)

* You judge a po-boy by the number of napkins used.

* The waitress at your local sandwich shop tells you a fried oyster po-boy "dressed" is healthier than a Caesar salad.

* You know the definition of "dressed".

* 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.

* The four seasons in your year are: crawfish, shrimp, crab and King Cake.

* The smell of a crawfish boil turns you on more than HBO.

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

* You're not afraid when someone wants to "ax you something".

* You go by "ya-mom-en-`dems" on Good Friday for family supper.

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

* You believe that purple, green and gold look good together (and you will even eat things those colors)

* You go to buy a new winter coat (what most people refer to as windbreakers) 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 have spent a summer afternoon on the Lake Pontchartrain seawall catching blue crabs.

* You like your rice and politics dirty.

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

* You prefer skiing on the bayou.

* You assume everyone has mosquito swarms in their backyard.

* You realize the rainforest is less humid than Louisiana.