YOU KNOW YOU'RE A SKYDIVER WHEN... * BOC goes from meaning "Blue Oyster Cult" to meaning "Bottom of Container". * You're making love to your partner and they whisper "I've never done this before" and you yell out "THAT'S a case of beer!". * On cloudy/windy days you go to the drop zone anyway and bitch about the weather. * On cloudy/windy days you pull out your parachute and pack it just to say that you've done something skydiving-related. * You "dirt-dive", "post-dive" and critique your love-making sessions. * The smell of bug spray makes you think of skydiving. * Whenever a passenger in a fast-moving car, you stick your head out the window and yell "FIVE LEFT" to the driver. * Whenever leaving an establishment you yell "DOOR" to all the patrons before opening the door. * You don't own any clothing that you didn't get at a boogie. * Every single one of your whuffo friends is to the point of wanting to kill you every time you mention skydiving. * You think of Jack Jeffries, Tamara Koyn and Norm Kent as "famous". * You analyze every flag you see in terms of it's too windy/not too windy to jump. * You analyze every flag you see in terms of which direction you'd face to land. * It's a dark sky with low clouds and you're thinking "Hop -n- Pops!". * It's so windy that trees are bending over and you're thinking "Cross country!". * You allow a maximum 55 seconds of "working time" when making love. * You can't think of a good reason to pick up your mail for three weeks after your issues of "Skydiving" and "Parachutist" arrive. * You feel naked without at least one jump ticket in your wallet. * You sign your checks with your name and USPA number. * You know to the tenth of a mile how far it is from your driveway to the drop zone's driveway. * Every time someone's beeper goes off you look at your watch to see if it's break-off altitude. * You don't remember your anniversary or your mother's birthday, but you know down to the second how much accumulated freefall time you have. * You analyze sessions of love-making in terms of "points turned". * You refer to your recent break-up as an "intentional cut-away". * You can't remember the true meanings of the words "Stilletto" "Javelin" "Talon" "Racer" ..... * You walk everywhere watching the sky. * You show up at the dz even on the worst-weather days because at least you can sit around drinking beer. * You can't mention the word "first" in casual conversation, at work, or ever in reference to yourself. * You have your paycheck direct-deposited into the dz account. * You plan your vacations around skydiving boogies. * On a full moon night, you look up and think "Night jumps!" * You know the dz phone number while you don't even know your own. * Anytime you have sex with someone for the first time you think "Beer!" * You've kissed more people in freefall than you have on the ground. * Your whuffo friends just don't understand why you would want to "do" a horny gorilla. * You drive a beaten-up car because you really need that new canopy more. * You have no idea what is happening on the weekends in your town. * You have more pairs of Tevas than you do sneakers. * You catch yourself flaking the bed instead of making it * The term "PC" makes you think of pilot chutes, not personal computers * You name your dog "Toggles" * You wonder what whuffos _DO_ with themselves on gorgeous summer weekends * You look at your VCR and think, "Hmm, that's gotta be worth a few jumps." * You forget to lower your voice when talking to your jumper friends in a restaurant about the weekend's lost dildos, loose legstraps and lack of penetration * You refer to Weddings, Funerals, Birthdays, etc. as 'Relative Work' * You wish for wind, rain, snow, earthquakes, locusts, tornados, etc. on days you have to work or have other 'Relative Work' to do. * You can't imagine how anyone can go on vacation without a parachute. * Your rig costs more than your trailer. * You love the smell of 'Jet A' in the morning! * Losing your job is a reason for celebration! * Your 'work' clothes have grippers. * You wear a Skydiving T-shirt and bring a six pack to a job interview. * You try to convince the State Trooper that your "D" license allows you to do ANYTHING! * Your log book is thicker than any book you've ever read. * You stop by the New River Bridge and take a look. All the others are saying 'damn, look how high it is' and you're saying 'damn, look how low it is'. * When you buy anything you calculate how many skydives it will cost. * When you wear your rig on commercial passenger flights, just in case. * When seeing seats in a twin otter gives you the willies. * When you go to divorce court and give your ex everything as long as you can keep all your skydiving gear. * When buying a house seems like a terrible waste of jump money. * When you own three rigs, three altimeters, three dytters.... * When you log a jump on December 25 and the fact it is Christmas doesn't enter your mind. * Your six year old son can teach the first jump course. * You put your arms down and back in a full track when running down stairs. * You estimate your chances of pulling off a hard front riser turn when looking out any window above four stories. * When you wake up with a mean hangover in a tent, the first thing you check is your rig. Then the person sleeping next to you. * You find yourself mentally telling the pilot when to flare while landing on a commercial flight. * Your christmas tree has more skydivers on it that an Otter can carry. * Your thinking about taking all the but the driver's seats out of your car. * Everytime you get pulled over for speeding you tell the cop you just made your first skydive in the hopes that he will let you go. * Your favorite movie in the world is just over sixty seconds long. * Your whuffo friends only call if the weather man says the weekend will be shitty. * Your friends look at the sky and say, "look at all those clouds", and you say, "look at all those holes!". * You wake up in the morning feeling like death warmed over, after having a few too many beers the night before, and your solution to this consists of riding in an extremely loud vehicle for about twenty minutes, throwing yourself out the door and NOT! killing yourself. * You can't think of a better way to relax other than falling 10,000 feet. * You fill out your packing data card in braille and try to convince the drop zone owner it's legal. * You consider sleeping in a slanted plane as comfortable. * You see an incredibly beautiful woman and you think, "hmm, I wonder if I can talk her into......skydiving!". * Your girlfriend holds out her left hand and says the word diamond. You picture a fourway formation, look at your girlfriends hand realize the diamond she's talking about is going to cost over 200 jumps, and then, with a smile, picture your girlfriends suitcases on the porch. * Your friend says "let's go to the beach", and you grab your rig. * You try to convince the flight attendant on a commercial flight that you really! would be much more comfortable sitting on the floor. * Your friends think it's funny to, when you are sleeping, blow a fan in your face and set a beeper off near your ear. * When someone asks you where you're from, you reply with the name of your dz, not your hometown. YOU KNOW YOU'RE AN OLD-TIME SKYDIVER WHEN: * You think PC stands for ParaCommander. * You still call them AOD's * You know the rules for SCS and SCR. * You HAVE and SCS AND and SCR #. * You call it "Freak Flying" instead of "Sit Fly" and can do it without a special jump suit.' * You still call it the "Freak Brothers" convention. * You remember when safety meetings weren't. * You can't tell the difference between BOC and a "pull out" except you don't get to pull your own pin. * You remember when turf surfing was something students did, not hot dogs. * You think Pink is a stupid gear color for guys. * You KNOW what else to do on a weekend. * You think they are ALL "fun" jumps. * You think a collapsable pilot chute is something bad. * You think diapers go on mains. * You don't call a jump from 9,500 a "cloud base" jump. * When "pro" packing is something your rigger does. * When paying someone to pack your main is a waste of perfectly good jumping money * When you lament the loss of the need to "stand tension" cause it gave your girl friend something to do. * You know who Lew Sanborn is and can spell his first name. * You still call them ASOs. * You know what a "jesus string" is. * You remember when you actually wanted to buy a Paraflite main. * You catch yourself using the term "snoot" every once in a while. * Camera suits were used for RW. * Waivers were on a 3"x5" index card...along with the rest of your info. * Competition judges actually had to stand outside. * You remember when a 5-cell canopy was the cat's meow. * You can remember when $7.00 to 12,000 ft was highway robbery. * You remember deliberately doing hook turns downwind into the ground to stomp a disk. * You remember why the pea gravel pit was invented. * You remember swearing never to remove *any* padding off of a harness.
