So Completely

A friend sent me this in an email recently & I couldn’t help but laugh in appreciation…especially since the day I received it I was feeling particularly homesick for New Mexico.

You buy salsa by the gallon.
You are still using the paper license tag that came with your car five years ago.
Your favorite restaurant has a chile list instead of a wine list.
You do all your shopping and banking at a drive-up window.
Your Christmas decorations include a yard of sand and 200 paper bags.
You have license plates on your walls, but not on your car.
Most restaurants you go to begin with “El” or “Los”.
You remember when Santa Fe was not like San Francisco.
You hated Texans until the Californians moved in.
The tires on your roof have more tread than the ones on your car.
You price-shop for tortillas.
You have an extra freezer just for green chile.
You think a red light is merely a suggestion.
You believe that usin g a turn signal is a sign of weakness.
You don’t make eye contact with other drivers because you can’t tell how well armed they are just by looking.
You think six tons of crushed rock makes a beautiful front lawn.
You have to sign a waiver to buy hot coffee at a drive-up window.
You ran for state legislature so you can speed legally.
You pass on the right because that’s the fast-lane.
You have read a book while driving from Albuquerque to Las Vegas.
You know they don’t skate at the Ice House and the Newsstand doesn’t sell newspapers.
You think Sadies was better when it was in the bowling alley.
You have used aluminum foil and duct tape to repair your air conditioner.
You can’t control your car on wet pavement.
There is a piece of a UFO displayed in your home.
You wish you had invested in the orange barrel business.
Your swamp cooler got knocked off your roof by a dust devil.
You have been on TV more than three times telling about how your neighbor was shot or about your alien abduction.
You can actually hear the Taos hum.
All your out-of-state friends and relatives visit in October.
You know Vegas is a town in the northeastern part of the state.
You are afraid to drive through Mora and Espanola. 
You iron your jeans to dress up.
Your other vehicle is also a pick-up truck.
Two of your cousins are in Santa Fe, one in the legislature and the other in the state pen.
You know the punch line to at least one Espanola joke.
Your car is missing a fender or bumper.
You have driven to an Indian Casino at 3am because you were hungry.
You think the Lobos fight song is “Louie, Louie.”
You know whether you want “red or green and sometimes you may even want Christmas.”
You’re relieved when the pavement ends because the dirt road has fewer pot-holes.
You can correctly pronounce Tesuque, Cerrillos, and Pojoaque.
You have been told by at least one out-of-state vendor that they are going to charge you extra for “international” shipping.
You expect to pay more if your house is made of mud.
You can order your Big Mac with green chile.
You see nothing odd when, in the conversations of the people in line around you at the grocery store, every other word of each sentence alternates between Spanish and English.
You associate bridges with mud, not water.
Our “rivers”, no matter how badly we want them to be classified as a river, are actually streams.
You know you will run into at least 3 cousins whenever you shop at Wal-Mart, Sam’s or Home Depot. 
Tumbleweeds and various cacti in your yard are not weeds. They are your lawn.
If you travel anywhere, no matter if just to run to the gas station, you must bring along a bottle of water and some moisturizer.
Trailers are not referred to as trailers. They are houses. Double-wide trailers are “real” houses.
A package of white flour tortillas is the exact same thing as a loaf of bread. You don’t need to write it on your shopping list; it’s a given.
At any gathering, regardless of size, green chile stew, tortillas, and huge mounds of shredded cheese are mandatory.
Prosperity can be readily determined by the number of horses you own.
A tarantula on your porch is ordinary. A scorpion in your tub is ordinary. A poisonous centipede on your ceiling? Ordinary. A black widow crawling across your bed is terribly, terribly common. A rattlesnake is an occasional hiking hazard. No need to freak out.