You know you're in Arizona when ...

@Paula

Not sure if you were refering to an actual crab, or the rodent. I found out the rodents I was referring too, are called Nutrias. If it's the nutria, I couldn't imagine BBQ'ing them, they're rather disgusting animals.

About the palmetto bugs - those are commonly referred to as the Florida Roach. LOL

::: Posted a picture of a nutria for my fellow desert rats. :::

Ok, I know what you're talking about now. I have never seen a horseshoe crab in person, but they are some of the oddest, yet most interesting creatures I know of.

I grew up in Flagstaff and have lived in Phoenix for ten years. Let me take a stab at this.

WHAT MAKES ARIZONA SPECIAL

--On TV a big purple lizard can host a children's show; in Arizona a big pink lizard will clamp onto your leg like it was a pit bull, pumping venom into you until either it pulverises your fibula or your heart explodes. Welcome the Gila monster.

--It is better to let your brakes go than your A/C. Like anyone really stops at a red light anyway.

--You can learn Spanish by driving on 16th St. from Camelback to Baseline. If you don't know what LLANTERAS USADAS, PANADERIA, MARISCOS, and IGLESIA CRISTO mean before you come, you will when you leave.

--They say Montreal is the second largest French-speaking city in the world; Behind Mexico City, Madrid, and Los Angeles, does that mean Phoenix is the fourth largest Spanish-speaking city on earth?

--Setting water out for your fellow man is considered doing what Jesus taught us to do, except when it's in the middle of the desert for illegals to find, to which conservatives will gladly call you a traitor aiding and abetting the enemy.

--We elect governors solely so we can impeach them. We haven't liked a governor we elected since Bruce Babbitt left office in '86.

--This is the state that thought it would teach the NFL a lesson by voting down the Martin Luther King holiday; apparently people thought it would be better to be labelled racist than host the Super Bowl.

--Tip to terrorists: don't waste your time thinking about blowing up Palo Verde or Sky Harbor or Bank One Ballpark. If you want to bring this town to its knees, just set up a few pylons on the 1-17-1-10 stack at about 5am, pull out your lawnchairs, and watch the fun.

--If a Senior Citizen with cataracts, who can barely see over the dashboard, who has had her blinker going since she pulle dout of her driveway, who is going 15 miles an hour below the limit, who crosses three lanes of traffic to pull into Hometown Buffet in Sun City hits your car, thanks to the AARP, it's YOUR fault.

--If this drought was happening in Ethiopia or Bangladesh, there would be massive famine. Thank you, Carl Hayden, for getting those canals built.

--It has a world class cancer research institute, a top 25 law school, and one of the best business schools in the country, but if you ask anyone under 19, the reason anyone ever goes to ASU is because of the parties. Having the senior class president suspended for shooting a inappropriate content in a limo did more to boost recruiting than the Sun Devils in the Rose Bowl ever did.

--God Bless Pat Tillman.

OK, so it probably wasn't as funny as the one-liners of others, but at least tried. At least I did that much.

I'm born and bred Zonie. Love living here, and have lived in and been to enough other places to know why.


You can keep your 10 inches of rain in a day, your 25 feet of snow in the winter, your 100% humidity, your flat, uninteresting land structure, and your hurricane, earthquakes, blizzards, tornadoes, etc. I'll keep playing golf in January while looking at 1000 foot vermillion cliffs and 700 foot deep canyons.