Notice a few things about this picture. First, the stoplight is red. Every stoplight in Lubbock is red. I'm beginning to think that every stoplight in the state of Texas is red. Seriously, there are stoplights at the university at which every light at an intersection is red simultaneously! For two minutes! Why not use stop signs? In fact, look at the picture - do you see any cars moving through the intersection? For years I heard and was witness to the fact that folks in Utah are really horrible drivers. I'm not disputing that. But at least Utah drivers are horrible in a hurry. Drivers in Lubbock are abysmally slow. This is pretty frustrating because Tricia and I are both Type A drivers - especially when I'm on the motorcycle and late for work, which is often the case - and there's nothing worse than getting stuck behind somebody having their morning smoke at a stoplight in their monstrously huge but profoundly slow pickup truck. Light turns green, you wait five or ten seconds for the cowboy in front of you to notice and accelerate to a brisk 37 in a 45. We've talked about it at length and come to the conclusion that people here aren't in a hurry to get anywhere because there's just not much to hurry to.
The second thing to notice about the picture is that the car has bumper stickers. I had always heard about Texas pride, but I don't think you can really comprehend the depth to which Texans honor their home state until you've been to Texas. And it seems that one of the chief indicators of the level of pride that you feel for Texas has to do with the number of bumper stickers you have plastered on your truck. My personal favorites are currently "Don't mess with Texas"; "Texas: It's bigger'n France"; "There are 2 kinds of people: Those who are Texan and those who wish they were"; "American by birth; Texan by the grace of God"; and "I'm from Texas. What country are you from?" But I think the best of all is the one pictured below:
Did you know that Texas was actually it's own nation at one time? Apparently there are folks here who think it would be good if this happened again, and they're committed to spreading the word via means of the bumper sticker. And believe me, you have plenty of time to contemplate this message while you're stuck behind it at a stoplight. Have any of you readers from Utah ever seen a "Utah Pride" bumper sticker? I mean besides Utah, it's a pretty, great state (what does that even mean?)
5 comments:
Hillarious Klint! If only people knew how true it is ;-)
Although I've never been to Texas, I've met plenty of crazies from there. I was offered a job in Austin right after I graduated from college. My repsonse was, "That's in Texas, right? No thanks."
We once contemplated moving to Texas... I think maybe now I'm glad we didn't! ;-)
That is great. Ryan and I were talking about that same thing the other day. We also love the fact that the truck you are stuck behind in no doubt a special Texas addition! :)
Although Texas does have its Texas pride, we've been pretty happy here. I think we'll need to do a post of our favorite things of Texas to show y'all (texas talk) it ain't that bad!
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