Anyone who grew up in the Lone Star State will recognize these things!
1. Filling up the bathtub with tacos and bathing in it: No two ways about it: Texas has the best Mexican food in the country. It doesn’t matter if you’re in California, New York, or Arizona—you won’t find better tacos to pour into a tub and rub across your body after a hard day’s work than the ones in Texas.
2. Sending your grandparents out into the bluebonnet field to die: Yup. All Texans know that the sick and elderly who can’t contribute anymore belong to the flowers. It’s sad, but it’s just part of being a Texan!
3. Knowing that Austin is the capital of Texas: As any born ’n’ raised Texan will tell you, Austin’s the principal political and cultural nexus of the Lone Star State, houses the Texas State Capitol, and is an important economic center in the Austin–Round Rock metropolitan area. Yee-haw!
4. Using tamales as currency, but only to buy slightly smaller tamales: All tamale vendors in Texas must accept one tamale in exchange for giving the customer a slightly smaller tamale. But don’t do much trading, or you’ll end up with a tamale the size of a thimble!
5. Learning how to speak in the posh British accent of the Texas Rangers’ butler mascot, Manservant Murray: Real Texas baseball fans love shouting his catchphrase, “Keep up the recreation!”
6. Never knowing when Don Barbecue would come to your family’s house to give you way too much meat: Everyone who grew up in Texas remembers the fear of knowing that at any moment, the dreaded Don Barbecue could show up at your house to deliver so much barbecue that it would crush your entire family to death. You never knew when Don Barbecue would show up, or where he got all the meat. All you knew was that he lived forever.
7. Ordering a Whataburger “just lettuce”: No bun. No meat. No sauce. Just lettuce, the way all burgers should be made.
8. Seeing a Texas-shaped cookie and worrying for a split second that someone shrunk Texas: Sooner or later, every Texan has the confusing experience of mistaking a cookie shaped like Texas for a shrunken-down version of Texas and getting really worried that someone shrunk Texas. But who can blame us? We love our state!
9. Knowing that “Howdy” can mean “Hello,” “Goodbye,” or “Walk in God’s light”: The rest of the country can stereotype Texas all they want, but only true Texans know the beautiful nuances of the state’s favorite word.
