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?

More tornado fun!

First of all, all ya'll Coloradans, remember that twister up Ute Pass a while back? When I saw the news about that I didn't believe it at first, until they showed the section of Highway 24 that goes past Scenic Acres and our cabin. Then the praying and frantic calling began, but it didn't hit anything me or my dad grew up with.

Alex C. commented with a really funny story about a friend of her brother's. Apparently he was in his dorm room in Washington D.C. when his friends decided to play a joke on him. They told him a tornado was coming and he flipped out, turning on the shower for some reason and hiding in the closet. They found him later. I assume he got them back worse later.

Back in the mid-late '60s a dust devil went through the Palmer High baseball field. It came through the backstop, over home plate and the pitcher's mound, and exited the field between first and second base, in the middle of a game. All the guys, including my dad, decided to se what it was like andrushed into the dust devil. It was windy.

Also, if you're ever in Cascade, don't buy anything at the Swis Miss. Neighborly feud over a cross burning.

Brainstorming and more serious storms

You've probably heard about the tornadoes yesterday in northern Colorado. One of them wiped out the Kodak plant in what I believe is officially Windsor. My cousin's husband works at the Budweiser can plant less than half a mile from there, in Milliken. Severe winds hit their house, and the family hid in the closet, since they apparently have no basement. Go figure. No major damage reported. The really criminal thing, though, was that the managers at the can plant did not even inform the workers that there was severe weather outside or that they were under a tornado warning, and the tornado could be seen decimating the Kodak plant. They waited until the shift was over, and mentioned causually "Oh, yeah, we nearly got hit by a tornado earlier. Have a nice day." They weren't given the opportunity to take shelter, nor did they even know that their families were in severe danger. As you can imagine, the workers were pissed off.

Milliken was without power or phone service for several hours. When our call finally got through, we learned what happened.

Lemme tell you about the process of making aluminum cans. In order to finish them, they must be cleaned with hydroflouric acid. This is evil stuff. Unlike most acids, HF does not cause burns to the skin. It penetrates through the skin without you even necessarily knowing that you have any on you, and binds to the minerals in your bones and blood. Imagine your bones dissolving from the inside out. That's what this will do if you get too much on you. The first aid is to cut off the blood supply so that it doesn't spread through your body, and then to apply a calcium cream to hopefully bind most of the HF. The toxins from dissolving your bone, though, can kill flesh in and of themselves, and the combined effect is similar to a snakebite and frostbite, where you have flesh dying, severe pain, tenderness, and swelling.... all from the inside out.

My cousin's husband once had an extremely dilute HF solution (less than 0.005%) drip a drop onto his hand while he was rinsing some racks. He didn't think anything of it until half an hour later, when it felt like someone had smashed his hand with a nine pound sledge. Since it was dilute and it was too late for the cream, he had to suffer that pain for almost a week while his body eliminated the toxins and repaired the damage.

Now imagine this stuff flying through the air at 200 miles an hour. Damn straight you're scared.

This Budweiser can plant employes almost a thousand people per shift. Let's disregard all the people downwind. If that plant had been hit during production, which came within a hair's bredth of happening, imagine now having all that uncontained acid in the air, with all these people near it. That's not something I would wish on my worst enemy.

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Now here's the brainstorm part. I've got a third of a gallon of gasoline that has thermally degraded too much to use in an engine, but is still basically gas. I need to get rid of it. I've thought of a few ideas, but I'm sure there's a better way. How would you get rid of it?

You might be a redneck

If you hide under your trailer when there's a tornado warning, you might be a redneck.

If you have a truck that couold haul that trailer across a boulder fieled at 70 miles an hour without flinching, but you hide under the trailer anyway, you are a redneck.

If the amount of CDs you take with you on vacation is measured in gallons, you might be a redneck.

If you have ever oiled your boots with 10w-30 because you had it laying around, you might be a redneck.

If your lawnmower always starts on the first kick, you might be a redneck.

Hispanics have large, close-knit families. So do white trash. If we know any family at all, we know 300 relatives. As far as we're concerned, if your third-cousin's brother-in-law married an Osmond, the Osmonds are now your family and are entitled to come to your annual pig roasts. If your great aunt's grand-daughter is graduating from high school, you are invited and will think nothing of driving 250 miles round trip to get there.

Global Warning Goddammit!

In other words, it is May, and I have hereby declared it sandal weather. Despite the fact that it is 40 degrees. Fahrenheit. My remedial science knowledge tells me that if our little corner of the world is warming because of emissions, it would be 40 degrees Celsius, and I would have been able to feel my feet today.

Having spent a very fun winter wearing thick and heavy clothing, and gotten sick of it, the warm days of May are the correct time to begin with the redneck fashion disasters we are known all up and down the trailer park for. But please, people, let's not forget that the "I wear it because it's comfotable and if you can't keep your lunch down that's your problem" rule also applies to socks with sandals. It's classic. And I plan on doing it several times in the coming weeks, until it actually is Colorado's fourth season: hot-as-hell. This is not to be confused with Arizona's second season, hot-as-all-hell-and-then-some. The first season being kinda-not-as-hot-but-just-wait.

So, yes, join me in the sandal protest of this cold front. Denial always works... at least I don't believe it doesn't, right? Plus, trust me, unless you really need work boots, you don't want to be caught in workboots when the season strikes.

While I'm on the topic, let me reiterate some of Jeff Foxworthy's redneck fashion tips, as well as add some of my own.

1. If your back is so hairy you have been shot more than twice with a tranquilizer gun, say yes to a shirt. Especially one with sleeves.
2. If your body is the same color as Dracula's, but your arms aren't, stick with a t-shirt.
3. If your stomach blocks your view of your shoes, cover it up!
4. When cuffing your pantlegs, keep them below the tops of your socks. Especially if you're wearing sandals.
5. We all love polished belt buckles, but make sure it won't does not shine sun in people's eyes. But at least they won't be able to punch you for it as long as you face the sun.
6. Tuck your shirt all the way in, or all the way out.
7. Don't wear one-peice jumpsuits unless the warden says you have to.

Also, other warm-weather redneck fun & safety tips:

1. Warm gas is vaporous gas. Light up your cigaratte after you fill up.
2. Waterskiing is ALWAYS a good idea. Unless it's not.
3. Your car really WILL run on moonshine or other hard liqour, but only if it's carbeurated or FlexFuel. Don't bet your buddies on it until you've proved in your driveway that you won't be the only one running on Jim Beam, though.
4. Running an engine on alcohol will shorten the life of your beloved truck, lawnmower, motorcycle, outboard, skateboard, go-kart, small airplane, weedwhacker, chainsaw, helicopter, toothbrush, or whatever else you happen to try it in.
5. Always check the slope for barbed wire BEFORE going running down it at full tilt. Even if it's your property, there might be some there, and it leaves large holes.
6. And most of all, CHECK TWICE, SAVE A LIFE. MOTORCYCLES ARE EVERYWHERE!