You Know You’re from Melbourne If …
(Continued)

You’ve never been to Adelaide yet you make jokes about their tap water, serial killers and Rundle Mall.

You think the Queen Vic Market opening hours are normal.

You assume flavoured milk is called Big M everywhere.

You know what the words apropos, gentrification and barista mean.

You or someone you know has been to or plans to go to a concert of a washed-out Rock Legend at a winery in the Yarra Valley.

You feel sorry for Geelong.

You think nothing of calling your son Hugo, Elliot or Atticus. Or your daughter Scout, Joss or Maeve.

You’ve stepped on an emo walking into Flinders Street Station.

At some point you have enlisted the services of the Tint Professor, the Dashboard Doctor or the Swagman, you have been to Car City, Pick-a-Part or Doors Galore, and you consider Whelan the Wrecker, Harry the Hirer and Peter the Possum Man members of the family.

You grow the hair under your arms but wax your growler.

You think a CBD street map laid out like tartan and lanes full of people eating breakfast while sitting on milk crates at 3 p.m. is normal.

The sight of drunk women staggering around the city wearing short strappy dresses and facinators withtheir shoes slung over their shoulder at 5 p.m. means only one thing. It’s Oaks Day.

You claim to have lived in one of the houses from Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip, next to Frank Thring or across the road from the guy who made Harvey Crumpet.

You know blondes don’t have more fun because Shane Warne dyes his hair.

You’ve lived in London, been to conferences in Paris, holidayed in Rome and know New York like the back of your hand but you’ve never seen the penguins at Phillip Island.

A suburb is defined as cool when it has junkies and Pilates. And the appearance of a juice bar means the real estate is out of your budget.

You love that Nick Cave, Barry Humphries and Rachel Griff iths are ours, but you don’t like owning up to Kylie Minogue or Daryl Somers.

You think a massage with a happy ending means when you’re finished they give you a café latte and a Readings voucher.

Unless you have cousins who live there, it’s only because of the Trading Post that you know where Diggers Rest, Chirnside Park and Niddrie are.

You only have two colours in your wardrobe: black and the new black.

You hope the Eureka Tower loses its claim as the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere and that the Southern-Star Wheel never gets fixed because we don’t want

Melbourne showing off like Sydney. And if it stays broken we can call it an installation.

You don’t think there’s anything strange about the fact that there’s a SouthMorang but no Morang and a Moonee Ponds withno ponds, and that Bayswater has no bay and no water.

You take Japanese students to the Coburg drive-in for the cultural experience.

You don’t mind graffiti as long as it’s spelt correctly and uses appropriate grammar while sticking it to the man, and is written by a woman.

Bacchus Marsh Lion Safari, Kryal Castle, Sovereign Hill, Wobbies World, Gumbaya Park … ah, school holidays in the ’70s.

Your husband wears a sarong, is in a book group and you think nothing of buying him moisturiser. But you call him your partner, not your husband. Either because you’re not married or because you don’t want people to think you are.

The SouthMelbourne Market means only one thing: giant chicken dim sims.

The only street you know in Richmond is Bendigo Street. And you know the postcode is 3121.

You hate it when they’ve shot a car chase in Melbourne and Sydney and the editing jumps between the two cities. Like we won’t notice.

You’ve never solved the mystery of how WEG always correctly predicted who would win the grand final when he drew his grand-final souvenir poster.

You have a friend in a band. Or a friend who says they’re in a band.

You know the difference between Carlton and North

Carlton, Heidelberg and West Heidelberg and Malvern and East Malvern is about $120,000.

You don’t think it at all strange that you know where all your friends went to school and still refer to it, even though you’re sixty.

Your favourite joke is Pakenham Upper.

You’re proud that the Melbourne word ‘bogan’ has finally officially taken over as the national term for bevans, westies, yobbos and white trash.

You only buy the Big Issue if other people are watching.

You love that only Melbourne people will get this list.