1. They refer to Noah as that asshole commuter with the really big gopherwood SUV.

2. You can't tell the street people from the business people.

3. A storm destroys a building with five businesses, and every one of them is a coffeehouse.

4. You get off early at three...and get stuck in heavy rush hour traffic.

5. If you put a big rock on top of it, it's art. Trust me on this one. Large cubes of blue glass also work.

6. You can be poor making fifteen dollars an hour.

7. Every fourth or fifth place is sitting empty, but a 1300 square foot house in a bad neighborhood still goes for 200 grand or more.

8. You're in the home of grunge and alternative, but can't find it on the radio. (Seriously, like four out of five stations on the radio play jazz, and the fifth one is NPR. Just try finding something that plays country or modern rock. I exaggerate, but not by much.)

9. Driving an SUV that gets 15 to the gallon is a mortal sin, but if you drive a mobile home that gets six, you're a god.

10. They think it's funny to throw fish. (have you ever been to Pike's Place? 20 cool points.)

11. The local Native American designs are a major part of traditional artwork that attracts tourists.

(How traditional? Why, white businessmen in the area encouraged them to stop making plain, undecorated crap, and make up some kind of ornamentation to make it marketable almost a hundred years ago. If you want to argue that one, don't pick on me, pick on the people that write the histories for this area.)

12. You go outside, and you know that God hates you.

13. Your children come home complaining that the other kids tease them because their gills haven't grown in yet.

14. Plato writes a story about your culture.

15. Coffee comes before booze.

16. The liberal argument almost makes sense. (the clarity of vision and purpose is both dangerous and seductive, unlike the kooks I got used to in California...)

17. They have one of the biggest phallic symbols in the country downtown, and this is the important part, nobody even jokes about it.

18. Artists can make a living. Even jazz musicians.

19. You fall in the ocean and don't notice until your coffee starts tasting salty.

20. 80 degrees is broiling.

21. You have an entire subterranean city beneath you, without Mole People!

22. You can drive a Saab or Prius to work, and nobody laughs at you. It's creepy, you even see people with Scions. blech.....

23. You see really big signs, with the word Seattle on them. (probably followed by directions to a coffee house.)

24. You can legitimately call in a suicide attempt as a sick day.

25. Someone asks you about going green, and you check your shoes for moss.