Someone says to you, "Please?", instead of saying
"Huh?"
1 inch of snow on the ground will close the schools for
a week.
You ask the waitress for a "three way," and it's not a
kinky proposition.
What groundhog? It's the St. Patrick's Day parade
leprechaun that forecasts how much
longer winter will last.
Losing football teams draw more fans than winning
baseball teams.
If someone asks, "what school did you go to," they mean
which high school, not college.
Indiana is about 20 miles away, but it takes about four
hours to get there.
It's too cold in the winter, and too hot and humid in the
summer, to ever stay outside for very long.
You drive to Columbus or Louisville to avoid the prices
at the Cincinnati airport.
City council members hold debates on whether or not they
should debate in the first place.
High school football gets 15 minutes of airtime on the 11
o'clock news; The NBA and NHL? Zero.
Tourists still flock downtown to catch a glimpse of cast
members from "WKRP," even though the show hasn't aired on
network television since 1984, and the show was filmed in
L.A., anyway.
You ask lifetime residents where the President Taft house
is, but they don't know either.
If you do something - anything - in public long enough,
sooner or later it will be banned.
Your low-fat diet is never low enough to exclude a
Graeter's ice cream.
You order "goetta" (pronounced "get-uh") and the
counterman actually knows what the hell you're talking
about.
You get through winter listening to Marty and Joe's
broadcasts from the grapefruit leagues.
Big Red Smokies are a ballpark treat, not cause to dial
9-1-1.
If necessary, the city could easily be sliced into two
new countries: East and West, and it would take 20 years
for anyone to notice something happened.
There is chocolate and cinnamon, not peppers and beans, in
your chili.
You can drive 30 minutes in any direction to hear a
different accent than your own.
You can accurately judge the social status of a person by
learning at which Kroger's store they shop.
You can go to any Church festival in any neighborhood on
any weekend and see at least 5 people you either work with,
went to school with, or dated.
Even the slightest mention of former baseball
commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti makes your blood boil and
your ears steam.
The temperature hits 45 degrees and the sun comes out in
any month between November and April, people walk around
downtown wearing shades and no jackets.
The top stories on the local 6 o'clock evening news look
suspiciously like the articles you read in the newspaper
that very morning - and even use the same quotes.
Any carbonated beverage is a "coke," a coke is a "pop," a
pop is a "soda," and a soda is a "float." Any questions?
You've talked about leaving this dump for 10 years and
you're still here, because despite all there is to poke fun
at, Cincinnati is a pretty good place to live.
