i mess with texas

As many of you know I am not a big fan of Texas.  For many reasons.  Many, many reasons. Including but not limited to:

1) Bush 2) His son Shrub 3) My trailer trash ex-step-family


Now, having said that, I realize not all Texans are jerks or bigots or trailer trash or the village idiot or loud with BIG hair and any number of other Texas stereotypes.  I have friends that live in Texas.  I used to live in Texas.  I have even spent precious vacation time and dollars in Texas. 

But for the most part, if the state of Texas decided to secede from the good ol' U.S. of A. it wouldn't hurt my feelings in the least.  If they seriously tried to do this, I might even consider donating $$ to their cause.

For years and years Texas has had a no litter campaign with signs up and down their roads that tell drivers, "Don't Mess With Texas."  I'm not sure how successful a campaign it is, but many Texans take it to another level and it means so much more to them than trying to deter their fellow yahoos from chucking their empty beer cans out their pickup windows as they weave up and down the long, lonely, Texas roads.

After the trailer trash ex-step-family incident, I was inspired to create a bumper sticker and some magnets on the Zazzle website for Heather and myself.

My bumper sticker is proudly displayed just beneath my license plate.  I've passed many Texans while driving but hadn't noticed any reactions one way or the other, which is fine.  It's more for my benefit than theirs.  No reactions that is until this past Monday as I was leaving work.

At an intersection leaving campus I was stopped at a red light when a Chevy Suburban pulled up behind me and parked itself practically in my back seat.  In the rear view mirror I could see it was some college aged kid and chalked it up to "not being an experienced enough driver to know to stop further back."  The light changed to green and I pulled out into the intersection.  At this point the kid behind me whips out from behind me and pulls alongside me and flips me the bird.  I quickly mentally go through the drive from my parking lot to that particular intersection and can't come up with anything that could have provoked such a display.  In fact, I hadn't seen this particular car at all before the driver decided to kiss the ass of my car with his.

I gave the universal "WTF did I do?!" arm gesture as he roared past me, his bird still flying high and proud.  Then I noticed the kid's license plate.

Texas.

I laughed out loud.

As I got to the next intersection the light changed to red and I saw the Texas Birdman in the left hand turn lane.  He had his passenger window down so I pulled up alongside of him, gave him my biggest smile and said, "And you, Bubba, are a prime example of why I do what I do."