You know you live in Taos if:
1. You either own a business or make minimum wage working for someone who does but, either way, you can’t afford to buy a house

2. Your neighbor on one side lives in a half-million-dollar adobe renovation. Your neighbor on the other side lives in trailer with tires on the roof which have more tread on them than the ones on his truck.

3. Your child's 3rd-grade teacher has purple hair and a nose ring and has an organic name like Sage or Blossom.

4. You can't remember if pot is illegal or not.

5. Young moms bring their babies to class, to board meetings and to all public events and nurse them while addressing the teacher or the podium.

6. Young dads are nowhere to be seen.

7. Gas costs at least .20 cents a gallon more than anywhere else in the U.S.

8. Young people don’t talk to each other face-to-face. They sit across the room or the plaza and call each other up on a cell phone.

9. It's barely sprinkling rain outside and the public schools declare a snow day and close down.

10. When the first touch of snow is sighted on the Sangre de Christos, the public schools declare a snow day and close down. All other schools and colleges follow suit and faculty and staff go skiing.

11. If you drive illegally, they take your driver's license. If you're here illegally, they give you one.

12. Many of your neighbors are grandparents at age 30.

13. Your coworker has eight body piercings not all of which are visible but he or she enjoys describing them to you in detail.

14. You hear something and hope it's "The Hum" because if it's not you have tinnitus.

15. When you compare Taos to Albuquerque, Taos is organic and ABQ is plastic. When you compare Taos to Santa Fe, Taos is blue-collar Southwestern and Santa Fe is wine and cheese counterfeit. When you’re in Red River and Angel Fire the phrase “East Texas Bible Belt with snow" comes to mind. When you’re in Española, you keep your eyes to yourself and hope for a lot of green lights and a quick passage through town.