posted 01-25-2003 09:45 PM         

Minnesota Winter Season Tips

This is to the Atlanta, Georgia mechanics and others who will be moving to our Twin Cities when NW Airlines closes its Atlanta Maintenance Base.

Welcome!

This is your lucky day! First, the West Nile fever season here is really, really short. Ditto, malaria and any other dread diseases carried by mosquitoes. The bad news is that you'll have to grow accustomed to hash brown potatoes. All grits end at Chillicothe, Missouri. You no longer have to say, "y'all"; When you call your dog, for instance, just say, "Come!" You don't have to say, "y'all come."
As mechanics, you will have a field day taking care of your car from now until spring - late spring, that is. Early
spring is really not spring, it is late winter. Remember that old Minnesota weather adage, "April showers brings May plowers."
Sell your cars, because a Georgia car will not survive here. It will freeze to death before Halloween, and buy a used car: If you buy a new car it will look like a used car after they dig it out of the display lot at the dealership.
At first, you may think that snow is pretty. Snow is not pretty. By December you will feel as if you are living in a black-and-white movie. And, there is a lot of snow - deep
snow that doesn't go away. The reason Northwest paints its tails red is so they can find their damn airplanes.
You'll find new loves here. One of them will be underwear that goes down to your ankles. All underwear that ends above the ankle is considered lingerie.

A few things you may not know:
Beer freezes.
A constipated dog is a good dog.
Ice fishing is a form of mental illness.
Sunrise and Sunset are roughly an hour apart.
Jumper cables make an excellent wedding gifts.
You'll look forward to slush.
Kleenex is covered by your medical insurance.
You must be aware that: Contrary to southern cuisine, there is no Minnesota cuisine. If it's dead, eat it. When you pack to come to Minnesota you need only to bring one short-sleeved shirt and that's only in case you want to fly back home for vacation. Short-sleeved shirts are handed down here from generation to generation. The short-sleeved shirt season here begins July 26 and is pretty much wrapped up by 3:30 on the 28th.
You will have to change your allegiances to professional sports teams and doing the tomahawk chop simply will not play here. People will think you're merely scraping your windshield.
We play a game here called hockey as well. Hockey coaches will kidnap your children before they even start school, so beware. They'll return them in April.
As for baseball, we never know if we have a team or not.
Moving on to religion. There are but two faiths here: pro-stadium and anti-stadium, and an agnostic is a person who doesn't care whether or not we have a new stadium.
We have an excellent college system. Unfortunately, it's in Wisconsin, Iowa, or the Dakotas.
Canadian honkers aren't something you see at a Winnipeg strip joint, they are geese.
By law, every vehicle in Minnesota must have a hitch ball, even hearses.
You cannot smoke anywhere in Minnesota. Unless it's dope.
If Minnesotans laugh at you for your backward politics in Georgia, you can stop them with two words: Pro wrestler.
Judy Garland was born in Minnesota and it took her 16 years of driving through construction detours before she got to the Yellow Brick Road.
Minnesota has more than 10,000 lakes, hundreds of thousands of miles of rivers and streams, millions of acres of forest, but only one Krispy Kreme.
Before calling homicide to a beer joint, make certain what you see behind the bar isn't merely a jar of pickled pig's feet.

Welcome and enjoy yourself, we're glad to have ya!

posted 01-25-2003 09:56 PM         

Kevin