#14 Doe Season

Pittsburghers like killing things.  If a Pittsburgher lives in Oakland, this hobby might be applied to fellow Pittsburghers, but residence beyond the inner city limits guarantees a love for hunting animals.  The statewide antlerless deer hunting season is only a few days long, so the first day of the kill-fest is always a huge deal in Pittsburgh.

The first day of doe season turns Pittsburgh into (more of) a ghost town.  High school teachers with pent up anger abandon their students.  Independent gas stations remain closed.  There’s no group of construction workers to stand around the side of the highway and stare at the single person actually working.  But there are reasons for this non-official holiday.

Pittsburgh is overpopulated with two things: old people and deer.  Since Kevorkian-style hunts were outlawed in 1974, putting the remaining nuisances in geriatric penitentiaries, Pittsburghers now have to hunt deer in the name of cleaning the streets.  The only thing that rivals the number of potholes on Pittsburgh roads is dead deer.  Whether one deer, two deer, big deer, small deer, they’re almost always reduced to smeared deer.

Sustenance living is another reason for the Pittsburgh doe season.  Pittsburghers like their jerky and back straps, and will not likely survive the harsh Pennsylvanian winter without this meat.  Sure, each hunter is limited to one doe per tag, but mixed with cases of beer, bulk potato chips, and dozens of frozen nun pierogies, a Pittsburgher can live in his game room, plasma screen close by, just like a real, hide-covered mountain man.

#7 Playoff Beards

In Pittsburgh, clean-shaven faces are rare.  Pittsburghers like supporting sports franchises in every part of their day-to-day life, which may include black-n-gold cupcakes or Super Bowl Sunday prayer services. Since a Pittsburgh sports team is seemingly always in the playoffs, Pittsburghers like to frequently grow ferocious playoff beards—the perfect accompaniment to their Sidney-Crosby-induced drooling.

Pittsburghers like to literally be passively aggressive.  What better way to actively support a victory than to abstain from an activity (like shaving).  Some call it laziness. Pittsburghers call it honor.  John Lennon called it a “bed-in.”

The Pittsburgh playoff beard used to be an excuse to show up to the office with some scruff, but is now a cutthroat competition for club membership where those with patchy growth and non-connecting mustaches are ostracized.  Pittsburghers have a bottomless immodesty and a militant instinct when it comes to their playoff beards.  They like to prey on the weak, but still expect their cooperation in the pride (the boasting sense and the lion-pack sense).

Pittsburghers with full, bushy beard will endlessly make fun of those with the facial hair of a thirteen year old.   Despite this, the easiest way to lose a Pittsburgher’s respect, and possibly be stabbed with a broken beer bottle, is to shave your playoff beard prematurely, no matter how prepubescent it may look.  If you are lucky enough to grow a thick, illustrious beard, be prepared to defend it and its playoff-winning capabilities.  A Pittsburgher will always be behind the office fern, waiting to pounce and display his mane as superior over yours.