You Know You're Puerto Rican When....
You have been spanked with a folded leather belt and/or "chancletas" ...leather ones! You know your mom is sneaking up on you cause you can hear her "chancletas" flapping on the linoleum floor. Your mom yells at the top of her lungs to call you to dinner and you only live in a one bedroom apartment. You've ever called linoleum floor a "rug" You can get to your house blindfolded by the smell of the "chuletas." You say "Vamoj pa' encima" or "mete mano" instead of "Let's get started." You got scared whenever someone mentioned "el CUUUCO"!!! You remember every Christmas those "aguinaldos" that abuela used to sing for you. You've gone to titi's house and passed through the "bead curtain" in the living room. You know someone who owns a conga, bongos and/or a cowbell. You step into a house that has all those little figurines taking up every inch of space on the tv and under the tv. You have a porcelain cat/dog/rooster or frog on a doilie in your living room. You have a perpetually semi-drunk uncle. Someone in your family is named Maria, Charlie, Papo, Ana or Carmen. You call rug-carpeta , roof-rufo, parking-palkin, stress-estress, library-libreria (instead of biblioteca), boiler-boila, sucker-soca, or to knock-noquiar. You have told your kid not to walk the floor barefoot or they'll catch a cold. You need a cup of coffee after every meal, expresso boricua style "con leche". Your sister has hair on her legs and as much moustache as your father. One of your aunt's weighs over 300 pounds. You have one or more cousins in and out of jail. Your uncle has more gold in his mouth and/or neck than you've ever seen. You have sat in a two-passenger car with over 5 people in it. You put a big Puerto Rican flag on your car... an a PR bumper sticker. You have a picture of "Cristo" or a crucifix in your house. You actually think some names begin with "Ave Maria pur..nos and/or fingers for pasteles during Christmas time. Your car has fifteen speakers in it and you fix it every weekend. You remember when Heineken replaced Shaeffer and Schlitz. Your dinner consists of a "mixta"...rice and beans and some kind of meat. Your uncle has a wife and a "corteja" or "chilla". You've put a penny on your forehead to stop a nose bleed. Your mother has put a balled up piece of thread on your baby cousin's forehead to stop her hiccups. You have at least thirty cousins. You know how to drive "estandard" or "estick" shift. You can tell the difference between Cafe Rico and anything else. A coqui's sound has driven you crazy. Your grandmother thinks Vick's vapor-rub is the miracle cure for everything. You're proud to be Puerto Rican - and you pass these jokes on to all your Puerto Rican friends!
