..you get cought by roommates being in wardrobe full of blankets, tearing apart books

..you wish you sometimes had self-built de-esser

your car crashes down a cliff AND you have a recorder on AND you have practically broken all your bones, the first thing you say is, "I hope that didn't clip!"

A few nights ago at a big train station in London, this VERY loud alarm started pulsing, followed by an automated message.

instead of worrying/finding an exit....I got my recorder out :)

You know how long it takes for an overhead jet to 'clear'

(something like 45-55 sec, or about 1:30-1:47 if they're flying low and there's no obstructions to baffle it)

You wish people's voice was de-essed.

You cringe when you hear mic rumble.

You end up with 3 hours of recording when you only needed that bird.

You find out the road is nowhere to be found (and your car for that matter).

Your car numberplate ends with the letters OMF and you know what it means.

It is sad to say that mine really does end in OMF, a friend has DAE.

You ever, on purpose, stood on your cat's tail with a cadiod pointing at his head to finish up your night ambience

You can put your headphones on with one hand

You ask your wife (girlfriend, sister, ... mom...) to teach you how to walk in high heels to deliver better foley tracks.

... you correct children playing with toy lightsabers that the sound they are making with their lips while they swing is not the proper pitch and the doppler effect could be better.

...your sms message tone is the Wilhelm Scream.

You sit on the toilet and reflect about its shape and volume and wonder what is its resonance frequency?

... you have more than 6 answers in this thread.

...you bring your D50 and a 1/8" minijack adapter to your unborn baby's ultrasound checkups to record the heartbeat in 24/96... more than once.

Guilty as charged. :)

... roomtone is the absolute highlight of your vacation hotel stay.

... you laugh at the joke:

"There is so much comb filtering in here I can part my hair."

You have mastered the art of not breathing for as long as the red light is on.

1) You've returned home and had to remove condoms, gaff tape, a couple mic clips, and a few patch cables to get to your keys.

2) You were puzzled by the shock of everyone around you as you pulled those items out of your pockets/bag.

3) You grit your teeth every time you hear high frequency feedback.

4) You've been questioned by campus authorities as to why you were hanging around a hallway dropping different pens for 2 hours.

5) You build a soundscape in your head every morning on the bus because the engine sounds cool.

..you can't sleep because you think all night.. man, I should be up and record that owl.

... because you habitually fill out the tip and total on a restaurant or bar bill written as timecode values instead of decimals.

...you've ever frozen contact mics or hydrophones

...you plan an extra couple of hours into your road trip's drive time for amb recording

...your wife is ok with that.

...you'd bring the dog, except that you know she'll make noise

...you agonize for weeks over a mic purchase

...you build stuff to hide mics and recorders in

...you've spent weekends just driving out into the countryside looking for stuff to record

...the sound of thunder triggers a fast twitch mic setup response

...you imagine how that thing you're hearing right now would look in izotope

...you've ever hidden mics in your ears

...you've ever had a cop ask you to pick up your gear and leave

...your non-audio significant other can spot a 57 on TV a mile away

...you go antiquing to look for cool sounding props

...you imagine the sound of the destruction of the furniture left outside that guy's house up the street

...screw it, you go and get that furniture and break it.

...you never oil the hinges in your doors

you're on the subway and you'd wish people would be quiet so you could hear the train approaching without voices in the background

You go to a party, everyone has cameras and you bring a portable audio recorder. Everyone needs party sounds! Don't they?

You're in a basement just outside Joplin, MO as the tornado hits and you're cursing yourself because it's THE ONE TIME you didn't bring your field recorder!

...you get mad if someone in a public space is making noises, cause you want to be able to hear the background. Like someone talking on the phone on a train... GAH

...you're standing in a fully packed, insanely hot train with an H4n pointed to the speaker just to get the call of the next station, and you're still standing there with your arm in the air after 30 minutes of speaker silence

...you're riding, and recording, a bike thinking your headphones will dampen the fall if you crash, but you won't crash cause that would ruin the recording

Instead of buying your 2 year-old the usual Triangle, Square, Circle puzzle to play with,

you give him the same toy but with XLR, BNC and TRS connectors.

You go to an Indian restaurant and the thing that impresses you the most is how effectively the tapestries and ceiling hangings are minimizing reverberation in the space.

You play a mental game with yourself guessing how many people, their size, if they have a dog, and their gender, based on sound information alone, have just passed behind you while sitting on a parkbench. (Also a good game at the beach.)

... you have a long-standing arrangement with all your beer drinking friends to save their bottles because you can never have too many shatter sounds.

... you have about 100 empty beer bottles in your garage just waiting for the moment their lives will come to a gloriously sweetened end.

... you have your friends trained to report all unique sounds they hear to you. eg. someone runs out of the public restroom to find you simply to say "Oh my god, you have to hear the motor on that paper towel dispenser!"

... you read the phrase "They dumped boiling water and oil on the French troops..." and your internal soundtrack fills in the Wilhelm scream.

...you've ever set up more than two mics for one sound source.

...you've ever tried to explain the difference between room tone and ambience to someone.

...you've ever worn earplugs and headphones simultaneously.