That Sounds Like a Bad Song Title

A lot of locals (ESPECIALLY younger kids who grew up in the city and maybe haven't left much) have no idea when something is a Pittsburgh Thing. Some of the obvious things, yeah, that's a given. We know about some things being Pittsburgh Things and take pride in them but then there are other things that are like "what do you mean yinz have never had a salad with fries on it?" Especially kids who grew up knowing Pittsburgh culture as their only surrounding, they have a lot of moments finding out that something is not a national experience

Piggybacking, we put french fries on a lot of salads. Not all of them, but if a restaurant offers salads they probably have at least one with fries included on top. I think this has migrated outside of Pittsburgh some, but it is a Pittsburgh Thing.

This one is super important for anyone writing a wedding fic, COOKIE TABLES!!! This is something that's bled out into some other areas, but it is an absolute MUST at any Pittsburgh wedding to have a cookie table. It is exactly what it sounds like. A table. Full of cookies. That's it. Sometimes people don't like cake, sometimes people are feeling peckish and just want something they can grab real quick without worrying about a fork or a plate, sometimes people don't like the flavor of the cake but there's a cookie on the cookie table for them. Some are more elaborate than others. My cousin got married and her cookie table was a 3 foot wide table in the corner with about 5 types of cookies. A lot of cookie tables tend to be 6 feet (a standard folding picnic table) with anywhere between 8-16 types of cookies. They're typically hand baked by someone the couple asks, but no one is going to quiz you on it unless they're upset that they weren't the ones asked so they could be store/bakery bought. This also has started to be more of a party tradition than strict to weddings (i had an 18 foot cookie table with 32 kinds of cookies (2,042 cookies total if you want exactly numbers) at my high school graduation party) but it is entirely necessary at a wedding unless you want disappointment and judgement. If you don't have one at your wedding, years down the road, people will remember your lack of cookie table before they remember the name of your spouse. If the marriage fails, they will blame it on the lack of cookie table. This is extremely important if you're doing some kind of content or media with a Pittsburgh wedding. I'll probably make this a whole post by itself it's so important.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my last post, but PIEROGIES (kidding I know I went on a whole rant about those) in all seriousness, strawberry pretzel jello salad. It's a layer of pretzel crust filled with a mixture of cream cheese and cool whip and topped with strawberry jello from the box. Delectable and I despise all other forms of jello.

The terrain is hard! There's a lot of hills and they're no joke if you're walking. Especially if it's hot out (or in the winter it gets incredibly icy) it's super easy to lose your breath or overwork yourself. And that's for an able bodied healthy person. I personally have a harder time with it because I have a chronic condition, but i imagine it would be even more difficult for someone who relies on mobility aids (cough cough Abbott) since many times their center of gravity is already off or gets thrown off significantly with the change in incline.

That being said, Pittsburgh is generally pretty walkable. There's sidewalks everywhere that are pretty good (some of them do need some love but in comparison to a lot of American cities they're not that bad)

No one from here has ever ordered "sunny side up" eggs. We call those dippy eggs here

Traffic is insane. Lots of one way streets that seem random and even more so the drivers are insane. I imagine the first time Whitaker drove in Pittsburgh after learning in farm territory where the roads are windy but clear mostly he pays $20 to pull into a parking garage to cry. I won't even mention the Pittsburgh Left. You can look that one up

Speaking of roads, POTHOLES!! Those go crazy here. The first time I flew in a plane I heard a flight attendant mention how bad the turbulence was but I slept and read a book because it felt just like riding in a car on PA roads. Most of the time Pittsburgh will leave them be to marinate and when they get bad enough they slap a steel plate over it and call it a day. #steelcity

Also this is a state thing not a city thing but we say PA, not Pennsylvania. Like "peyay" the letters

Not sure if i mentioned this but the snow and ice comes in large amounts. The winters can be really harsh and the ER probably sees a lot of winter weather related injuries.

We have the 3 rivers so it gets WINDY, which really rips through you in the winter. No joke I'm pretty sure the wind has pushed me uphill while I was leaning back on a few occasions.

Everyone here is vitamin D deficient, the clouds are always around

When it gets cold it gets COLD and when it gets hot it gets HOT. I went to pride last weekend and sweat off my makeup and got sunburnt while wearing spf 100. I was outside for like 3 hours and most of it was in the shade.

Mini Pittsburghese lesson: to redd up=tidy or clean. See also redding up and redded up

A lot of people put an R sound in things. "Wash" tends to sound more like "worsh" and "iron" gets slurred into "urn" a lot