Thursday, May 6, 2010

You are truly from the Bronx if...

* You know someone who went to Lehman or Spellman or Taft.

* You have at one point in your life wanted to go to Fordham University.

* Lehman College isn’t really a college.

* You know what the 4, B, D, C, and 6 are .

* You know some Spanish even if you never took it in school.

* Girls, including me, are real bitches, in other words we dont take shit and we tell it like it is, we dont play that pussy footing game of 'trying not to hurt your feelings' wimps dont survive here too long.

* You once fell asleep on the train after midnight, and the conductor woke you up in Brooklyn.

* You don’t go to Manhattan, you go to “the City.”

* You always change at Fordham Road or Westchester Square.

* You never realize you have an accent until you leave.

* Your parents took you out for REAL seafood, in City Island.

* You know what a Bodega is.

* People live in groups and you know or you can tell where each group lives: Italian, Irish, Black, Puerto Rican, Dominican...

* There is at least one pizza place within 10 minutes of your house.

* You curse… A lot.

* You know where to find alcohol past 2 AM.

* You’ve stumbled into a diner– after 1 a.m.

* Your friends come over to hang out on the porch/stoop.

* The Yankees are part of your culture.

* You’ve driven under the train.

* You’ve been to Bronx Zoo at least once.

* You think Central Park is "nature."

* You're paying $1,200 for a studio the size of a walk-in closet and you think it's a "steal."

* You've been to New Jersey twice and got hopelessly lost both times.

* You go to dinner at 9 and head out to the clubs when most Americans are heading to bed.

* You have 27 different menus next to your telephone.

* Going to Brooklyn is considered a "road trip."

* You're suspicious of strangers who are actually nice to you.

* There are no yellow cabs, just Lincoln town cars.

* Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on your toes.

* You say "the city" and expect everyone to know that it means Manhattan.

* You secretly envy cabbies for their driving skills or had a brother who was a cabbie and taught you to drive.

* You have never been to the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building.

* The subway makes sense.

* The subway should never be called anything prissy, like the Metro.

* You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multi-lingual.

* You've considered stabbing someone just for saying "The Big Apple."

* Your front door has more than three locks and a bar, your windows gates.

* Your favorite movie has De Niro in it.

* You consider eye contact an act of overt aggression.

* You call an 8' x 10' plot of patchy grass a yard. You complain about having to mow it.

* You consider Westchester "Upstate."

* You run when you see a flashing "Do Not Walk" sign at the intersection.

* Your family lives in the same house, and the rest live a few blocks away.

* There is a 24 hour store less than 10 minutes away.

* You’ve gotten drunk on a back road or in the park.

* You know someone who claims they knew Jennifer Lopez growing up.

* You can correctly pronounce places like Long I-lind, but don’t know where it is.

* Your parents always talk about moving away, but you know they never will.

* When you say you live in the Bronx, people look at you like you’re poverty stricken and you just feel the need to slap them right then and there and when you say you’re from Country Club, they picture a golf course in the middle of the ghetto.

* You always take the express bus and not the train home from the city at night.

* The only decent mall is in White Plains, and you’re willing to make the trip.

* Your mom always talks about the Alexander’s and Loehman's that used to be on Fordham Road.

* You know that the Yankees are the REAL team…fuck the Mets.

* You’re sick and tired of Jennifer Lopez because she’s really no different from any other girl in Castle Hill.

*All the kids in Riverdale go to Stuyvesant or Bronx Science.

* You personally know the Arab who runs that convenience store and the Italian dude that makes the killer egg creams.

* You’ve stumbled into a diner drunk as hell

* You think a slice of pizza and a 25 cent juice is a well balanced meal.

* You’ve seen a Bronx Tale, love the movie and know at least one person in it, if you weren’t in it yourself

* You brag about how The Summer of Sam was taped near you and can name at least 10 extras in it and 10 exact locations where it was filmed.

*You tried to stay out of the bad neighborhoods until you realized every neighborhood is bad.

*Handball is a sport.

*"Mad" is an adverb.

*you're 35 years old and don't have a driver's license.

*you ride in a subway car with no air conditioning, just because there are seats available. You and the other three passengers look at each other and know you have pure grit.

*you are going home from work by subway and you know exactly where on the platform the doors will open that will leave you right in front of the stairways at your home station.

* A hat pin is a weapon.

*you refuse to eat any pizza slice that can't be folded in half so that you can eat it while you walk.

*you return after 10 or more years living outside NYC, and the first food you want are real pizza and White Castle sliders.

*you wouldn't dream of going to Times Square on New Year's Eve.

*You can tell a gunshot from a firecracker and not get scared, but when you go to the burbs you get scared of hearing a cricket