Life in These United States

WELCOME TO MINNESOTA

First, the West Nile fever season here is really, really short. Ditto, malaria and any other dread disease carried by mosquitoes. The bad news is that you'll have to grow accustomed to hash brown potatoes. Grits end at Chillicothe, Missouri.

You no longer have to say, "y'all," the most worthless expression in the English language. When you call your dog, for instance, just say, "Come." You don't have to say, "Y'all come."

As mechanics, you'll have a field day taking care of your car from now until spring (late spring, that is, for early spring is not spring, it is really late winter). Remember that old Minnesota weather adage, "April showers bring May plowers."

Sell your car. A Georgia car will not survive here. Your car will freeze to death before Halloween. Buy a used car. If you buy a new car it will look like a used car before they can dig it out of the snowbank at the car dealership.

At first, you may think snow is pretty. Snow is not pretty. By December you will feel as if you are living in a black-and-white movie. And there is a lot of snow. Deep snow. Deep snow that doesn't go away. The reason Northwest Airlines paints the tails of its planes red is so they can find the damned things.

You will find new loves here. One of them will be underwear that goes all the way to your feet. Any underwear above the ankle is lingerie.

A few things you may not know:

• Beer freezes.
• A constipated dog is a good dog.
• Ice fishing relieves mental illness.
• Sunrise and sunset are roughly an hour a part.
• Jumper cables make an excellent wedding gift.
• You will look forward to slush.
• Kleenex is covered by your medical insurance.
• You must also be aware that, contrary to southern cuisine, there is no Minnesota cuisine. If it's dead, eat it.
• When you pack to come to Minnesota, you need only to bring one short-sleeved shirt (and that's only in case you want to fly back home for vacation). Minnesotans pass short-sleeved shirts from generation to generation. The short-sleeved shirt season here begins July 26 and is pretty much wrapped up by 3:30 on the 28th.
• You will have to change your allegiances to professional sports teams. Doing the tomahawk chop simply will not play here. People will think you're merely scraping your windshield.
• We play a game here called hockey as well. Hockey coaches will kidnap your children before they even start school, so beware. They'll return them in April.
• As for baseball, we never know if we have a team or not. Moving on to religion. There are but two faiths here: Pro-stadium and Anti-stadium. An agnostic is a person who doesn't care whether we have a new stadium or not.
• We have an excellent college system. Unfortunately, it's in Wisconsin, Iowa, or the Dakotas. Canadian honkers aren't something you see at a Winnipeg strip joint. They're geese.
• By law, every vehicle in Minnesota must have a hitch ball. Even hearses. You cannot smoke anywhere in Minnesota. Unless it's dope, of course.
• Minnesotans may laugh at you for your backward politics in Georgia. You can stop them with two words: "Pro wrestler."
• Judy Garland was born in Minnesota and it took her 16 years of driving through construction detours before she got to the Yellow Brick Road.
• Minnesota has more than 10,000 lakes, hundreds of thousands of miles of rivers and streams, hundreds of thousands of miles of scenic lake and river roads, millions of acres of forest, and three Krispy Kremes. Guess where everybody wants to go.

THE NEW QUARTER

A FLORIDA BLESSING

Bless our yard where spiders pass
fire ant castles in the grass.
Bless the garage, a home to please
carpenter beetles, ticks and fleas.

Bless the love bugs, two by two,
the gnats and mosquitoes that feed on you.
Millions of creatures that fly or crawl,
in Florida, Lord, you've put them all!!

But this is home, and here we'll stay,
So thank you Lord, for insect spray.

YOU KNOW YOU'RE IN FLORIDA IN JULY WHEN ...

THE BLACKOUT

WHERE DO YOU LIVE?

1. You make over $250,000 and you still can't afford to buy a house.
2. The high school quarterback calls a time-out to answer his cell phone.
3. The fastest part of your commute is going down your driveway.
4. You know how to eat an artichoke.
5. You drive to your neighborhood block party.
6. Someone asks you how far away something is, you tell them how long it will take to get there rather than how many miles away it is.

1. You say "the city" and expect everyone to know you mean Manhattan.
2. You have never been to the Statue of Liberty.
3. You can get into a 4-hour argument about how to get from Columbus Circle to Battery Park, but can't find Wisconsin on a map.
4. You think Central Park is "nature."
5. You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multilingual.
6. You've worn out a car horn.
7. You think eye contact is an act of aggression.

1. You only have four spices: salt, pepper, ketchup and Tabasco.
2. Halloween costumes fit over parkas.
3. You have more than one recipe for moose.
4. Sexy lingerie is anything flannel with less than eight buttons.
5. The four seasons are: winter, still winter, almost winter, and construction.

1. You get a movie and bait in the same store.
2. "Ya'll" is singular and "all ya'll" is plural.
3. After fifteen years you still hear, "You ain't from 'round here, are ya?"
4. "He needed killin'" is a valid defense.
5. Everyone has 2 first names.

1. You carry your $3,000 mountain bike atop your $500 car.
2. You tell your husband to pick up Granola on his way home, and he stops at the Day Care Center.
3. A pass does not involve a football or dating.
4. The top of your head is bald, but you still have a ponytail.

1. You've never met any celebrities, but the mayor knows your name.
2. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor.
3. You have had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" on the same day.
4. You end sentences with a preposition: "Where's my coat at?"
5. When asked how your trip was to any exotic place, you say, "It was different! "

1. You eat dinner at 3:15 in the afternoon.
2. All purchases include a coupon of some kind -- even houses and cars.
3. Everyone can recommend an excellent dermatologist.
4. Road construction never ends anywhere in the state.
5. Cars in front of you are often driven by headless people.
6. You don't know how to vote.

ONLY IN AMERICA ...

ONLY IN HAWAII ...

WHEN DID ALL THIS HAPPEN?