Parenting

26 Ways You Know You Grew Up In Southern California

by Jennifer Li Shotz
Updated: 
Originally Published: 

2. You scooped nuts and seeds from the bulk bins at the health food store in your zories and OP shorts.

3. You didn’t have to Google “zories.”

4. You order it Double Double Animal Style. And you know what the hell I’m talking about.

5. You don’t hesitate to eat a shrimp burrito from a roadside stand that looks like a parking lot attendant’s booth. And you know that Baja fish tacos belong on corn tortillas. Never flour, people.

6. You know that the teen girls in the crazy hats and brightly colored striped shirts doing that weird hopping humpy-looking dance are just making the lemonade to go with your Hot Dog on a Stick.

7. You don’t think it’s weird when grown men yell at each other for “snaking my wave, bro.”

8. You love it when friends stop by to say hi at lunchtime, and five hours later you’re grilling dinner for them.

9. You don’t think it’s abnormal to go to swimming at the beach in the morning and hiking in the mountains in the afternoon.

10. You don’t acknowledge celebrities in public. Except the ones that think they can cut the line at the Coffee Bean because they’re celebrities. Those douches you call out publicly.

11. You’ve moved through road rage and come out the other side, to the place of Zen understanding that it is not your responsibility to teach the offending driver, because karma will catch up to him. At the next red light.

12. You use words like “my Rolfer” and “Paleo coach” in regular conversation.

13. You still say “awesome,” “gnarly” and “hella” in your 40s.

14. You blame every itchy eye and scratchy throat on the Santa Anas.

15. Sigalert.

16. You shopped at Trader Joe’s when all they sold were nuts and wine. None of this Truffled Macarons with Kale Sprinkles nonsense.

17. You think of Viggo Mortensen as Exene Cervenka’s ex-husband, not as Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings movies.

18. You used to hang out on the Venice Boardwalk and buy beaded jewelry from weird stoner dudes, long before the European tourists came by the busload.

19. The sound of skateboard wheels on asphalt instantly transports you back to the day in 1984 when that rad boy you had a killer crush on finally noticed you—and you were totally stoked.

20. You had Third Stage Smog Alert days instead of snow days.

21. Your friend’s uncle used to give you pot. Without you even asking for it.

22. You don’t care what today’s experts say—you still stand in a doorway during an earthquake. Because it worked back then, so why stop now?

23. You know that Black Flag is a band, not a pest control product.

24. You still hear this in your head sometimes: “Eh-kees ey tey ray ah eff-ay em-ay ba-ha kah-lee-for-nee-ya may-hee-ko.”

25. You’d recognize the voices of Rodney Bingenheimer, Raechel Donahue, Richard Blade, Jed the Fish, The Swedish Egil and Dusty Street anywhere, anytime. And you remember Dr. Drew from Loveline—way before he was on TV.

26. You can’t differentiate any of your childhood memories by season. They all look and feel the same: sunny, warm and blue-skied. Even the Christmases.

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