You might be from Colorado if

A winter statistic: 98% OF AMERICANS SCREAM BEFORE GOING IN THE DITCH ON A SLIPPERY ROAD. THE OTHER 2% ARE FROM COLORADO AND THEY SAY, 'HOLD MY SODA AND WATCH THIS!'

For rednecks, especially those of the mountain trailer trash breed (you've met us, even though you might not know it), that above sentence is usually uttered while at the wheel of a 12-year-old sedan.

NOW: You're from Colorado if you'll eat ice cream in the winter. Are you kidding? I stock my freezer with popsicles first thing in December. And we're not the only ones in the Costco line with a jumbo pack of Orange Dreamsicles, either.

When the weather report says it's going to be 65 degrees, you shave your legs and wear a skirt. That's in the spring. In the winter, the shave-legs-and-wear-skirt point is 47. Shorts for guys (and those of us who wouldn't be caught dead in a skirt) is at a clear 42 degree day.

It snows 5 inches and you don't expect school to be canceled. No shit. Five with seven more on the way means get an early start, the school won't be starting late.

You'll wear flip flops every day of the year, regardless of temperature. No, we'll wear Birkenstock sandals. Flip-flops don't happen until late May; the snow will suck them off your feet.

You have no accent at all, but can hear other people's. Actually, I must disagree here. Colorado has a few accents, which no non-Coloradan can pick up. Mostly, you can tell if someone's from the Front range, ranch country, the Western Slope, or right up Jack Frost's asscrack on the Divide. You think I'm kidding. Spend a winter in a trailer in Buena Vista.

And then you make fun of them. Okay, we'll make fun of people's accents, but mostly northeaserners. "Hey, nor-easter! That 'sat-ah-lights' means snowplow. No, you don't get snow where you're from. You ain't seen nothin' yet." Sometime's that's followed by "Hold my soda and watch this."

'Humid' is over 25%. Damn straight. And this constant 45% we've been having means our swamp cooler won't function, except to give us new and creative mold problem. Really, the other day, I held a board meeting with all the various strains of mold that want to live in our bathroom. The toilet mold isn't getting his damage deposit back, the shower mold is getting evicted before he even gets to move in, and the mold that wants to happen on the ceiling because of the damn swamp cooler malfunctioning got hit with agent orange.

Your sense of direction is: Toward the mountains and away from the mountains. Is there any other way? March me across a compound hill leading into a drainage that will run 40 miles before it hits flat land, and I will be able to point where we came from. March me out on flat land and ask me the same thing, and I will get it very wrong.

You say 'the interstate' and everybody knows which one. Well, we only have two. Say "the highway" and everyone knows what you mean, too. Just give a number, like "24, 25, 285, 17," (ut-hut-hike!), and folks will know whether you mean Interstate, U.S., or Colorado road, too.

You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard. June's pretty normal, too, in Jack Frost's asscrack, oops, I mean the Divide.

You buy your flowers to set out on Mother's day, but try and hold off planting them until just before Father's day. There's any other way?

You grew up planning your Halloween costumes around your coat. I went as a fireman one time just so I got to wear heavy canvas duds. Another time I went as Chewbacca just so I could wear fur to stay warm. We only had three dry Halloweens when I was growing up, and one of then was 17 degrees.

You know what the Continental Divide is. Who doesn't?

You don't think Coors beer is that big a deal. They bought the whole town, of course it's a big deal. It just isn't any good from a beer or supply chain standpoint.

You went to Casa Bonita as a kid, and as an adult. And take every visitor there, too.

You've gone off-roading in a vehicle that was never intended for such activities. Can you say "Jeeping in an MG 1100?" How about "Towing a big-ass trailer up a dirt mountain road with a '93 Olsmobile Cutlass" Been there, done that. How about "Towed someone out of a mild Colorado ditch with an '83 Mustang?" Hell yeah. I always say, if you get stuck anywhere in Colorado, wait and a local will help you. If you get stuck within 90 miles of Denver, call me, we'll get you out.

You always know the elevation of where you are. 5373 feet.

You wake up to a beautiful, 80 degree day and you wonder if it's going to snow tomorrow. Or thundersnow. I didn't know that was possible until it happened. I thought the Reds had attacked. With a nuke.

You don't care that some company renamed it, the Broncos still play at Mile High.

Every movie theater has military and student discounts. Seriously, is that abnormal?

Everybody wears jeans to church. Some folks ride quads to church. I saw one feller ride a horse one time.

You actually know that ** South Park ** is a real place not just a show on TV. You also know that the really weird people are just over the pass on either side of South Park.

You know what a 'trust fund hippy' is, and you know its natural habitat is Boulder. Drinking Fat Tire Ale and saving the whales.

But where else do you have such a Postcard view from you front/back porch! Somewhere that's NOT Boulder.

You know you're talking to a fellow Coloradoan when they call it Elitches, not Six Flags. Fuck Six Flags. It will always be Elitch's, (both spellings are acceptable), and not to see Elitch's is not to see Denver.

A bear on your front porch doesn't bother you. It does tend to bother other people, though, so you'll probably throw a firecracker at it. Tom did that once, the bear jumped straight up out of his dumpster, hit the ground running, and never came back.

Your two favorite teams are the Broncos and whoever is beating the crap out of the Raiders. Except last season. The Broncos were' not on that list last year, but Elam was. Trading him was the dumbest thing that franchise has ever done.

When people out East tell you they have mountains in their state, too, you just laugh. They're hills. That's why y'all are called hillbillies. We've got hillbillies here, too, but here, they live in the FOOThills, and the real dangerous moonshiners, hunters, and general backwoods boys live up past the foothills, in the front or second range of the MOUNTAINS.

You go anywhere else on the planet and the air feels 'sticky' and you notice the sky is no longer blue. It's been sticky around here lately, too. Wouldn't it suck if the overall change in climate patterns that "global warming" is going to cause put us smack dab in the middle of a cold, wet zone?