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Since moving to Texas a few months back I continue to be surprised by the intense differences in the daily lives between peoples who speak the same language but live in different parts of the country. My dad asked me for a few words to sum up these daily examples of shock and awe:
You know You’re a Los Angelian Living in Houston When:
1. You start to use the words “like” and “y’all” in the same sentence. (i.e. “Ya’ll should, like, totally come ‘round again.”)
2. Cracker Barrel.
3. Forget Where The Sidewalk Ends . . . you’re perpetually searching for where the sidewalk begins.
4. You are weirded out by the immense berth cars give pedestrians in residential neighborhoods.
5. Cracker Barrel.
6. You can answer yes to Bonnie Tyler’s (and John Fogety’s) question, “Have you ever seen the rain coming down on a sunny day?”
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7. It takes you three weeks to figure out the sideways traffic lights.
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8. “Frontage road? What’s a frontage road?”
9. Cracker Barrel.
10. People complain about “heavy traffic” and you laugh in their faces because you’re still zipping along at 50 mph.
11. “The freeway gets off on BOTH sides??? Why would it do that to me?”
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12. You see gray outside, expect it to be a cold day, and exit face-first into what feels like a warm, wet towel.
13. Cracker Barrel.
14. You have been unmercifully mocked for asking “Where is the recycling bin.”
15. You realize nobody is really mad that you took that parking spot, because there’s a gajillion more.
16. You realize they truly weren’t kidding about the “Everything’s bigger” slogan.
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17. You realize that all barbecue up until this point in your life has been a fraud, a fake, a mere pretender to the throne.
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18. You consider walking around with a haunted expression, stopping strangers and murmering, “My people laid waste to their forests. Here, you live in harmonic balance between forest and city. Don’t make our mistakes.”
19. Cracker Barrel.
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Well said (and nicely illustrated, to boot). Laughing out loud. Thanks, Dusty Rose.
That was funny! And what can you say, and not say it shamelessly again and again like an anthem arising in your heart and soul but “Cracker Barrel.”
I’m short but in Texas I felt like a fly.