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For the 318,244 of you who moved here about 15 minutes ago, this is your guide to summers in Charlotte.
Your beach is named Myrtle and there's just no good way to get there.
When people give you directions to some romantic destination, it is actually considered normal that they name several barbecue joints as key landmarks.
If you're a bird-watcher, dusk is the best time to observe the Giantamongus Spindly Plasma Plucker. We also call 'em mosquitoes.
State law: If you're driving a dog around, its head must be clearly visible hanging out the window. And if you need to send urgent text messages, let the dog drive. It's safer that way.
If you're from New Jersey, it hasn't even begun to get hot yet.
If you're from Florida, it never gets hot. And lay off that horn.
It's always nine times warmer in Columbia. Official city slogan: Only thing between here and hell is a screen door. Public officials have been known to disappear on extended walkabouts. No one can blame them.
We get all four seasons: rainy, pollen, tourist and basketball.
Why housepainters work in July, no one knows.
We are fortunate so many local stations operate Ghompler Whompler Dompler radar. This way, you can see in psychedelic Technicolor every itsy-bitsy vortex 100 miles away, along with apocalyptic commentary sometimes spanning hours. Where you're from, TV stations probably called these thunderstorms. Here, they are Liquid Death.
Humidity hangs over us like a beer gut over a Speedo. Yeah, it's that bad.
And, not to spoil the fun, but keep the kids inside, no matter how many times they tell you to “run out and lie in a ditch!”
It's on the driver's license test: Bridges go molten before roadways.
This isn't easy to explain: More water you conserve, more you'll pay for it. Doesn't matter how much it rains, by the way. We're always in a drought.
All the alien invasion manuals say the same thing. To maintain near invisibility, just land at Black Mountain in summer and walk around town with an ice cream cone.
We have a pretty short hurricane season, usually limited to the week you rented that cottage.
Finally, and this is important: That gray stuff you'll see everywhere?
It's called air.
Mark Washburn: 704-358-5007; mwashburn@charlotteobserver.com
