-It was 62 degrees when you fell asleep. You woke up to five feet of snow. There’s no sign of it stopping. 9 news said it would only be a dusting, but everyone knows they’re wrong. It doesn’t stop you from quietly talking about the weather reports at every polite juncture.
-Traffic never stops. Valley highway never moves. They always say that they’re expanding the highways. Construction never ceases. You’ve been stuck in dead stopped traffic for hours. You never find the source of the traffic. You’re starving and tired, traffic doesn’t move. You fall asleep and wake up hours later, and traffic still hasn’t moved. You arrive at your destination 5 minutes before the time you left.
-Everyone has a friend of a friend who was present during the Columbine shooting. Nobody talks about it, everyone knows. School lockdown drills are frequent. They last for hours on end.
-You stare out the windows on the lightrail. The bridges that raise the train high above the ground make you uneasy. It feels as if it’s tipping, but it never falls. No matter how loud you turn your music up, the beeping of the closing doors is always louder. You missed your stop 3 stations ago. It takes an hour to catch another train.
-Everyone knows how to ski. It’s ritual for parents to take their infants skiing as soon as they can walk. They go skiing every weekend. Everyone knows how to ski.
-Foreigners think the smog hanging over the city is pollution. Everyone knows it’s a marijuana haze. The city never has time to recover before the next 4/20. You know the difference between skunk and marijuana instantly. Everyone has a dealer at their disposal.
-Sports Authority has closed down. The name Sports Authority Field still glares at you as you sit in traffic. You wonder what they’ll rename it. No attempt has been made.
-You always know the outcome of last night’s football game, even if you don’t watch football. Everyone watches football. You can’t let them know. You can mention it once, and they’ll laugh, thinking you were joking. Mentioning it again is a fatal mistake. Nobody has gotten over Super Bowl XLVII.
-Everyone knows the man in the robot costume on 16th street. Anyone who has traveled 16th street has interacted with him at least once. You wonder how much he makes. You know to be nice to him. The look in his eye tells you that you wouldn’t want to do otherwise.
-The mountains are constantly in view. You get a sense of anxiety when you can’t see mountains, even if you know you’re in a different state. The mountains control you, they call you. You have to enjoy hiking. Everyone owns a camelbak. The trees close in around you. You wonder how many times you’ve walked in a circle now. You must be close to the summit, you think. The heat kills you before you make it to the top.
-Someone once told you the strange tent formation of DIA’s roof is supposed to emulate mountains. You believed them, but were wary of what else they could be. The blue horse stares you down as you enter. You don’t look it in it’s eye. If you did, you wouldn’t be able to look away. You’ve gotten used to the feeling of being watched.
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