How do you know you grew up Italian?

1. You have at least one relative who wore a black dress every day for an entire year after a funeral.

2. You've experienced the phenomena of 150 people fitting into 50 square feet of yard during a family cookout.

3. You were surprised to discover the FDA recommends you eat three meals a day, not seven.

4. You ate pasta for dinner at least 3 times a week.

5. You grew up thinking no fruit or vegetable had a fixed price and that the price of everything was negotiable through haggling.

6. You were as tall as your grandmother by the age of seven.

7. You thought everyone's last name ended in a vowel.

8. You thought every meal had to be eaten with a hunk of bread in your left hand.

9. You have at least six male relatives named Tony, Frankie, or Louie.

10. You relate on some level to the Godfather and the Sopranos.

11. You grew up in a house with a yard that didn't have one patch of dirt that didn't have a flower or a vegetable growing out of it.

12. You thought cookies, cakes, and the Tarantella were common at all weddings.

13. You thought everyone got pinched on the cheeks and money stuffed in their pockets by their relatives.

14. Your mother is overly protective of the males in the family no matter what their age.

15. You thought that talking loud was normal.