Lifestyle

You Know You Live in Texas When…

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Tony Maples Photography

 

Texas is a distinctive place by all measures – our landscape, wildlife, cuisine, vernacular, lifestyle, entrepreneurial spirit and culture. And everything really is bigger here. You know you live in Texas when…

1. Feral hog hunting is a popular leisure activity.

You Know You Live in Texas When

Photo: helibacon.com

Group buying websites regularly offer local deals on multi-day, wild hog hunt packages. Or opt for a day hunt by air with Helibacon. The Bryan-based company takes clients on a helicopter and provides them with high-powered rifles for shooting these destructive critters – not only for the sporting aspect but also to help control the population. According to Helibacon, “Texas has 3 million wild hogs running rampant, causing $400 million in damage annually.”

2. The gas station is a good option for breakfast.

You Know You Live in Texas When

Photo: csnews.com

In some small towns, it may be the only place to eat out in the morning. Mom-and-pop convenience stores often have commercial griddles and serve fresh breakfast tacos – tortillas, sometimes handmade on the spot, stuffed with your choice of scrambled eggs, potatoes, chorizo, brisket, beans, cheese and/or salsas. Stripes convenience stores and Rudy’s Country Store and Bar-B-Q, with locations all over Texas, also make respectable breakfast tacos – drop in to fill up both your belly and your gas tank.

3. Convenience stores are bigger than football fields.

You Know You Live in Texas When

Photo: mysanantonio.com

Buc-ee’s convenience stores and gas centers can be as large as 67,000 square feet, which is the size of the New Braunfels store on Interstate 35 between Austin and San Antonio. Twenty times the size of a 7-Eleven, this Buc-ee’s has 84 toilets, 60 gas pumps, 80 soda dispensers and 31 cash registers, according to a Sept. 2012 Wall Street Journal report. Every Buc-ee’s also features rows and rows of standard convenience store fare and sundries as well as an extensive selection of private-labeled beef jerky, candy, trail mixes, granola, pralines, jarred vegetables, preserves, homemade fudge and salsa.

4. Chicken fried food expands as a category and goes upscale.

You Know You Live in Texas When

Photo: bigtex.com

Consider Jack Allen’s Kitchen, a casual but refined Austin-area restaurant that describes its food as combining “Southern-inspired flavors with the spice of southwestern cuisine.” The menu has a section titled “Chicken Fried Anything.” And at this year’s Texas State Fair, the food award finalists included Chicken Fried Lobster with Champagne Gravy, which sold out on the first day despite the whopping $30 cost.

5. You routinely say things like:

You Know You Live in Texas When

Photo: desibucket.com

“ate up with the dumb&%#” and “rode hard and put up wet” the former about someone who said or did something really stupid and the latter in reference to a worn out and rough looking person.

6. You actually know people with names like “Slim”.

You Know You Live in Texas When

Photo: Wikipedia

You also know and might even be friends with women named Marvin Jean, Theodosia Violina and Loudell (“loo-DELL” or, if you’re from West Texas, “loo-DALE”) and men called Dub, Bub, Bubba, Jim Bob, Joe Bob, Dwayne (“duh-WANE”) and, similarly, Dwight (“duh-WHITE”)

7. Rattlesnakes rule your life.

You Know You Live in Texas When

Photo: National Geographic

Your rancher friend cancels your spring visit, saying, “There are too many rattlesnakes out now.” And from April through October, your neighbors post almost daily on the community Facebook page about nearly stepping on rattlers slithering across their patios, coiled up in a corner of the garage or wriggling out of the gas grill when they open the lid.

8. Horses are the preferred mode of transportation for some people.

You Know You Live in Texas When

Photo: Susan Tull

For example, you pull into the parking lot of a highly frequented honky tonk and among the cars and pick-ups are three horses hitched to the bicycle rack. And you’re only a mile from downtown Austin, the nation’s 11th largest city.

9. The bride wears cowboy boots on her special day.

You Know You Live in Texas When

Photo: amberaileen.com

She might even have them custom-made by Lucchese or another beloved Texas boot company.