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You're Not Californian Until...

California Food + Drink Couples
by Colin Heinrich May 18, 2015

1. You realize that everything can be burrito-ized.

It starts with lunch. Then you’ll move on to breakfast burritos. Eventually you’ll discover the newly popular Sushi Burrito. Next thing you know, you’re frantically trying to slop your Jamba Juice into a flour tortilla and swaddling your girlfriend in the bed covers before breaking down in the bathroom and admitting to yourself you’ve got a problem.

2. You get a parking ticket.

You can park in this spot on Saturdays and Sundays, but you can’t park from 3-4 PM on Sundays. Wednesdays are street cleanings, and you’ll need a 4R permit to park between 8PM-6AM every day except for Tuesdays, unless you’re only parking for 30 minutes or less on the right side of the road, and it’s a Full Moon. Bless you, you’ll make it for a few weeks. But they’ll get you. If it’s the last thing they’ll do, they’ll get you.

3. You stop giving a shit about parking tickets.

Give it a few months. But eventually, finding those little $65 violations on the windshield will become half as irksome as actually finding a spot you can park legally in the first place.

4. You stop giving a shit about traffic.

The most common complaint about California is the traffic. And sure, setting aside a three hour time slot just to drive the ten miles to the farmer’s market to get those prime avocados is a bit of a bummer, but when the sun’s shining and you’ve gotta drive anyway, why not put the top down, the tunes up, and kick it for a bit?

5.You appreciate the inland areas more than the beach.

All new transplants love going to the beach, every single day. Sometimes just because they can. But if you don’t start to resent the crowds, and the cold Alaskan water, and how it’s always just about 10 degrees cooler than you thought it’d be, then you’re forcing it and being willfully ignorant of just how much better Joshua Tree and Yosemite are. At least you can drink a beer there.

6. You get paranoid about your water usage.

Yeah, the vast majority of water problems are caused by agriculture, but what kind of monster leaves their water running while brushing their teeth even outside of a drought?

7. You pick sides in the SoCal/NorCal “rivalry.”

At first, you’re just a Californian. But when you’re the best state in the country, you have nobody to compete with, so obviously you’re just going to compete with yourself. You’ll become a Dodger fan and grow a distinct hatred for anybody sporting the SF shirt. Or you’ll realize just how stupid all those people from LA sound when they talk about their juice cleanse.

8. You get weirdly defensive of In-N-Out.

Sure, they’ve started expanding into Texas and other parts of the Southwest. But In-N-Out Burger is our thing. You probably don’t even know how to order there. Come on.

9. You start to hate tourists.

Californians love to compete with each other over who’s been there longer. The instant you fuck up is the instant some random dude pops out of the woodworks just to shout at you for being a transplant. And one day, you’ll become that person. You’ll scream at tourists for taking too long to cross the street, while you simultaneously bask in your smugness for being a local while looking side-eye for any natives who might one-up you.

10. You embrace your role as the Evil Empire.

For some reason, more than anywhere else, California draws ire from every other state. They’ll hate on anything they can — the people, the traffic, the Lakers, the Bay weather, name it — and you’ll defend your new state to the death. But eventually, something clicks. You’ll stop trying to defend California, because bitch, you’re Californian already, and you’ll use their tears of jealousy as a seasoning in your bomb homemade guacamole.

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