You Know You Are a Burner When...

 

  • You take the weird big bubble wrap stuff that your mail order computer equipment was packed in and wrap it around your body trying to come up with a fashion concept.
  • Most of your camp is comprised of items bought at Home Depot and not REI.
  • Someone says 'PVC' and you think 'Shade Structure' before 'Sprinkler Pipe'.
  • You have Playa Dust in a salt shaker on your table as a condiment in case you get homesick for Black Rock City.
  • You go to the beach and only you have a bottle of SPF 30 encrusted with playa dust and not sand.
  • Sneakers in a dryer sound suspiciously like the Techno Music you heard on Burn Night.
  • You have some Burner friends in a non )^( context and you have to ask them what their real names are to introduce them to your mundane friends.
  • You salivate when the local gas station has Propane on sale.
  • You own a bunch of 20# Propane tanks and *no* gas grill.
  • You're much better prepared than most of your family/friends to handle the situation when the water or power goes out.
  • Your mundane friends come to you first to borrow a tent or camping equipment.
  • You get more email from the )^( list than the Spammers.
  • You're in the store loading up at the afterXmas sale with strings of LED lights and they're NOT for Xmas, but "cos" those would be great for the Village" and the the store clerk goes 'huh?'
  • You start wondering when tickets will be going on sale, to an event that's 8 months away.
  • You explain why you got a trailer hitch installed on your compact car, cos "it'll be a great way to haul stuff to Playa del Fuego & other burns" and your friends go "uh huh, okay..." You try and explain *any* of these threads to someone outside this world...
  • You have several brand new 12V batteries sitting around, when there's nothing wrong with the perfectly good battery in your car You go to a park and find yourself picking up even garbage and moop that others left behind, because, well, "leave no trace" ya know...
  • Your new source of cool ideas in fresh gear for club wear & parties is the Army Navy Surplus Store. And you seem to have spent more money in that store over the past six months than in any mall dept type store you can think of.
  • You are standing in line at 3:00 a.m. in a Wal-Mart in Reno, waiting to pay for batteries, plastic sheeting, 12 gallons of water and a bicycle... and so are the half dozen people in line in front of you. (True story from BM 2001)
  • You walk into a Home Depot at 11:55 at night and you see two women and a guy buying 6 rolls of duct tape, 200' of rope, 12 1/2" rebar stakes 100' of PVC piping, and no pipe dope for the PVC.
  • You go to the Louvre and wonder what all of the various "masterpieces" would look like wreathed in glorious flames You find yourself attending an anticensorship rally at a radically free art event!
  • You can't get enough of CNN and Fox News and the War in Iraq not because of the war coverage but because the terrain and dust storms look so much like BRC that you get homesick.
  • A lone electrical tower in the middle of nowhere on Interstate 5 takes on new physical significance.
  • Getting up everyday and putting on clothes seems unnatural You really never go camping but have way more camping gear than any of your friends.
  • You start saying things like, " this one time at Burning Man" ... A la American Pie's " One time at band camp" refrain You start lusting after the deluxe sun showers at REI You start collecting weird objects that just seem playaesque.
  • Wearing ram's horns to a party seems like the most natural thing in the world.
  • Forgetting that introducing myself as Miss Erika sounds odd in California. If this were Georgia...sure.
  • You have to define a "Smut Puddle" to someone Getting your oil changed at Jiffy Lube makes you giggle & then get all serious. Somehow working in the phrases: get in/get off/get out to the perplexed technician.
  • Going "home" takes on a whole new meaning in August.
  • You're the only one in the entire Reno Hilton parking lot with a cargo van (filled with camp trash to boot!)
  • Watching the acrobatics at Cirque Du Soleil makes you wish you were running around doing cartwheels in Black Rock City.
  • You cave in the top of your Suburban and you smile.... because it was just enough wood to make your ideal structure.
  • You smile because the Snow pack has been very deep and the playa has begun to flood.... and you pray it is enough to keep the dust down You care more for the people you met at the playa then the ones you live next to.
  • You stop explaining Burning Man to people and just say.....I'm one of those.....and smile when even one says back.....so am I!
  • You consider the epithet 'Freak' as a compliment.
  • The employees at your local DIY Warehouse are on a first name basis, inquire as to what project you're up to, go out of their way to help.....and ask to see pictures!
  • The traffic report tells of a 'Carbeque' and you know that the only real one is Gigsville's Fire Pit!
  • You know that a gasoline engine powered Radio Flyer Wagon and Toilet are not just the Hot Wheels you can buy at the store.
  • You don't know the Mundane Names of most of your friends. And if you do, you still don't use it, and didn't know their Mundane Name until
    years later!
  • You go to a techno/DJ party and you wonder where all the costumes and all the naked people are and why everyone looks and acts so repressively NORMAL... and WHY doesn't anyone else notice that this is going on?
  • People don't understand why you just "give things away"..... or pick up litter.
  • Water becomes your drink of choice and you always subconsciously note whether or not you "piss clear".
  • Your wife asks to borrow your dress! or Your wife thinks the skirts you bought were for her! or You are heard arguing with another man about who's skirt is more manly!
  • You keep multiple sports bottles of water stored in our fridge and in your car. And you don't live within hundreds of miles of a desert.
  • The wallpaper on your screen is shot you took of a piece of untouched playa from 5 feet in the air.
  • You'd drive 3 hours on I-95 through crappy traffic just to have a beer with somebody you camped near two years ago.
  • You go to properly clean out your monster backpack round about the end of September find a few scraps of paper with email addresses written on them. It's bad enough you cannot remember one thing about how you got them, so you email "Hi, I think I might have met you on the Playa, can you tell me any more?"
  • You subconsciously break your non-BM friends down into two categories: Those that could appreciate and involve themselves and become Burners, and the others.