12 Signs You Were Born and Raised in Washington State

3. In high school, the girls asked the guys to “tolo,” not to a “Sadie Hawkins Dance.”

She asked you with “tolo?” scribbled on a crumpled up piece of notebook paper that she borrowed from you. “Sadie Hawkins Dance?” just wouldn’t have looked as good.

4. You don’t drink Rainier — you drink Raw-nee-ay, because cheap beer tastes less like cheap beer when pronounced with a French accent.

Whether you’re at a watering hole in Eastern Washington or at a stuffy, beanie-infested hipster bar on Capitol Hill, they probably have Rainier tall boys, and they’re probably always on special.

5. You’ve eaten a bag of Dick’s.

As a kid you savored the obligatory stop for a Dick’s Deluxe, fries, and chocolate shake on the way home from a basketball game in Emerald City. As a twenty something you almost always find yourself with bag of Dick’s in hand after a particularly boozy night with friends that calls for consumption of “all the fries.”

6. You’ve accepted the maddening reality that Kitsap County still can’t pronounce bags.

Dammit all, it’s “bags” not “begs” or “baigs.” You’re making grocery-baggers’ jobs more miserable than they already are. You’d probably call them “grocery beggers” anyway.

7. You’ve always been well stocked up on Theo’s Chocolate, because Hershey’s is for the poorly-developed taste buds of a torch-wielding Neanderthal.

Theo’s chocolate is everything that’s right about Seattle — the first organic and fair trade chocolate factory in North America. At last, I can feel morally superior when I consume excessive amounts of chocolate. The only downside is a few bars cost half a paycheck, which funnily enough has inspired a dumpster-diving rage among like-minded broke-off-their-ass individuals that burrow for the chance of getting their hands on just one tossed brick of choco heaven.

8. You’ve been on a ferry to Bainbridge Island before, and it kind of sucked.

Torrential downpours and aggressive gusts of wind are a given out here. You’d think modern day engineering would have given us ferries better tuned for handling white caps and relentless chop. Unfortunately, nope. You forgot to steer clear of the stadium-priced pastries and Alaskan Ambers served on board throughout the ride, so naturally, you got seasick.

9. Your four seasons growing up were fall, winter, spring, and blackberry picking.

You were one of those kids who, in the process of trying to fetch a bowl of blackberries, managed to cut up every inch of exposed arm / leg — all for a damn pie. What happened to outdoor pools and lemonade stands in the summertime, and why are blackberry bushes so aggressive?