[gardeners] You Know You're From Houston If
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Tue, 03 Jul 2001 19:43:27 -0500
Here's one my daughter sent me today. As an old Houstonian I felt it was
appropriate for an over-the-fence story.
George
YOU KNOW YOU'RE FROM HOUSTON IF . . . . .
The "farm-to-market" roads have seven lanes.
You have to turn on the air conditioning in January,
two days after a low of 29 degrees.
Everybody has a story of the Flying Roach the size of
the Taco Bell Chihuahua.
When you see your neighbor dancing around the front
yard, you don't think he's won the Publisher's
Clearing House Sweepstakes; you know that he just
stepped in a fire ant bed.
You're on your way to work one FEBRUARY morning and
suddenly you're trapped in a traffic jam caused by a
chuck wagon and fifty horses - with riders - and you
look around to see that everybody in the trucks around
you is wearing a cowboy hat. (rodeo time)!
The name "Bud Adams" makes people snarl, and "Bum
Phillips" doesn't mean bad screwdriver.
"Luv ya Blue" still makes you smile, even if you did
run the Oilers out of town.
You know that the Astrodome will always be the Eighth
Wonder of the World.
You come to work in short sleeves and walk out at noon
to find that a "blue norther" has blown through and
the temperature has dropped 40 degrees.
You wander into a section of town where you can't read
the street signs because they're written in Asian
characters instead of English, but you don't care
because you can get great prices on fake designer
merchandise.
You go to an art festival and you're almost run down
by hand holding cross dressers on roller blades.
You hear everything but English spoken when you go to
the Galleria to window shop. (You can't afford to buy
because the prices are jacked up for all the foreign
tourists.)
You know that "Dad gummit" has nothing to do with your
father's failure to practice good dental hygiene.
You think "Y'all" is perfectly good usage if you're
referring to more than one person.
Spring is not the season, Katy is not the lady, and
1960 is not the year.
Society matrons of "a certain age" still sport big
hair and faces that have gone east, west, and north
rather than south.
You can leave your house, head out of town, and an
hour later you still haven't left the city limits.
(During rush hour, you haven't left your
NEIGHBORHOOD.)
You've NEVER seen I-45 and I-10 in any condition other
than under construction - and you've lived here for
more than 30 years.
The only REAL Mexican food is Tex-Mex.
You know that while saving you money, "Mattress Mac"
has amassed more than the U.S. treasury.
You see nothing unusual about an eighty-something
former sheriff's deputy who wears a white pompadour
toupee and blue sunglasses, mispronounces names,
allows televising of his frequent plastic surgeries,
seems unnaturally obsessed with slime in the ice
machine, and screams, "MAR-VIN ZIND-ler, iiiii-witness
news" into a television camera every night. But some
folks are still upset with him for shutting down the
Chicken Ranch (a famous Texas house of prostitution).
If the humidity is below 90 percent, it's a GOOD hair
day.
Ain't it so, don't you know!!!