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How to Confuse a Texan

Texas
by Genevieve Northup Nov 2, 2016

Refuse to eat at a BBQ joint because it looks like what’s left after a tornado hits a trailer park.

Every Texan knows that family-owned shacks with picnic tables and Styrofoam cups have the best. People aren’t standing in line because they have nothing better to do; the slow-smoked meats, tangy potato salad, jalapeno-spiced baked beans and made-from-scratch peach cobbler are well worth the hour wait.

Ask us about the weather forecast

Don’t you know, the only condition you can count on is it bein’ hotter than a burning stump come summer? We got droughts, hurricanes, twisters, flash flooding and blizzards, all in one day the other five months.

Offer us soda

We will nod our heads and answer simultaneously with one syllable: Coke. We may mean Diet Coke, root beer or our state-made Dr. Pepper. You best confirm our drink order before walking away and ask if we want Coke next time.

Drive a compact hybrid vehicle

You can’t comfortably take road trips in those good-for-nothin’ Matchbox-sized cars — and driving anywhere in Texas takes forever. You can’t haul your new Weber gas-charcoal-rotisserie grill and patio furniture from Home Depot to your home. And you sure as hell ain’t gonna have a tailgate party before the UT/OU Red River Shootout, the most important college football game of the season.

Invite us to a picnic, dinner party or baby shower on Saturdays

Shiner and salsa, check. Team jersey, check. DVR ready, check. We’re not doing anything on Saturday except watching the college game in real time. We don’t DVR it to watch later — we watch the 89-yard touchdown over and over.

Try to eat a rack of ribs with a knife and fork

If ever there were a finger food, it would be baby-back ribs. It’s OK to get your hands dirty for this staple of Texas barbecue.

Say you’ve never been to Schlitterbahn

There is only one place to pass the unbearably hot summer days: the first Texas water park. We’ll fix you right up with a visit to the original location in New Braunfels. You’ll be scared as a cat at the dog pound as you plummet six stories, in total darkness, on the Black Knight waterslide.

Order your ribeye well done at a Texas steak house

You have just committed a huge injustice toward the 11 million heads of cattle that provide that juicy, marbled Texas beef. You’ll never know it’s so tender you can cut it with a fork. Might as bury it because it couldn’t get any deader.

Ask for directions to How-ston

Do you mean Who-stun? The largest city in our state is pretty easy to find; just about every mileage sign on any major freeway lists Houston. You may have several hundred miles to go, but it’s just over yonder.

Stand there when we put out a hand for a shake

The only way to greet people around these parts is with a firm grip. I guess you just fell off a turnip truck into our fine state.

Look confused when we raise the Texas flag and pledge our allegiance.

Don’t you do that where you’re from? No? Guess you’re not that proud of your home state. Well, we’re serious as a snakebite about Texas, which was once a republic unto itself.

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