How to Become Minnesotan. Is This What it Takes?

I went down the rabit hole on facebook last night.  Did I waste a lot of time?  Absolutely.  Did I stumble on something worth sharing?  You bet I did!

The question posed on the Minnesota Memes page from "Wally" was this:  What type of initiation do out-of-staters need to become fully Minnesotan?  I knew the comments were going to be good.  People were sharing one or two things like, "make it through an entire Minnesota winter" or "let go of any hope of your football team being successful".

But Jennifer Joy Anhorn laid it all out in one fell swoop with the following post.

Well, Wally-It’s a lengthy process.

• You have to have visit at least 5 major MN landmarks: Itasca state park, Duluth, Rochester’s Mayo Clinic, and several other places (too many to mention) outside of the twin cities area.

• You have to have been bitten by at least 250 mosquitoes in one summer’s weekend.
• You have to love the call of a loon.
• You must swim in a lake in either early May or October.
• You must go ice fishing, snowmobiling, and curling at least once.
• You need to know when to say uff da and ope.
• Perfect the one-finger wave (I said wave).
• You must try rhubarb in at least 3 forms (examples: pie, cake, sauce, wine, slush, syrup, etc).

• You have to know the appropriate time to utter, ‘it wouldn’t be that cold without the wind.’
• You have to live through at least 5 blizzards and move more than 2 feet of new snow within 2 months.
• You have to be able to describe how -30°F feels including how it stings your lungs and changes the sound of snow.

• You must kick off more than 100 ice chunks from cars.
• You must know where ‘up north’ is.
• You have to see the Northern Lights.

• Somebody you know has got to hit a deer-so then you will understand ‘watch for deer’ means ‘I love you’ in Minnesotan.
• You have to be able to say goodbye for more than 35 minutes.

Complete all of these activities and you may get a MN learners permit.

Some other comments were eat tator tot hotdish and that you have to call it pop not soda.  Cole summed it all up in true Prince fashion saying, "You must purify yourself in the waters of lake Minnetonka".

Is this what it takes?  What was missing?  Keep reading for more.