YOU KNOW YOU'RE FROM HOUSTON IF....

  • 1. You're on your way to work one FEBRUARY morning and suddenly you're trapped in a traffic jam caused by a chuck wagon and fifty horses with riders and you look around to see that everybody in the cars around you is wearing a cowboy hat.

  • 2. The "farm-to-market" roads have seven lanes.

  • 3. If you want to be a snob about your grocery shopping, you can go to a Randall's Flagship, a Kroger Signature, a Rice Epicurean, or soon, an HEB Central Market to buy bread and milk (but you have to dress up, and your dog and cat are out of luck if you go to the latter - nothing as mundane as pet food there).

  • 4. You have to turn on the air conditioning in January, two days after a low of 29 degrees.

  • 5. You have a Roach Story: You opened your flatware drawer to find a roach the size of the Taco Bell Chihuahua. He stood up and looked you in the eye. You closed the drawer, bought new flatware - and stored it in the oven. Or your friend has a Roach Story - about a dive bomber who crashed her formal dinner party, made several passes at guests whose heads were bobbing like little dogs in car windows, and finally landed in somebody's soup.

  • 6. When you see your neighbor dancing around the front yard, you don't think he's won the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes; you know that he just stepped in a fire ant bed.

  • 7. The name "Bud Adams" makes people snarl, and "Bum Phillips" doesn't mean a bad screwdriver.

  • 8. "Luv ya Blue" still makes you smile, even if you did run the Oilers out of town.

  • 9. You know that the Astrodome will always be the Eighth Wonder of the World.

  • 10. You come to work in short sleeves and walk out at noon to find that a "blue-tailed norther" has blown through and the temperature has dropped 40 degrees in a matter of minutes.

  • Your neighbor's Christmas yard decorations look like a re-creation of the gunfight at the OK Corral, complete with a ten-foot tree decorated with boots and cowboy hats, and a Santa Claus who looks a lot like Wyatt Earp.

  • You wander into a section of town where you can't read the street signs because they're written in Asian characters instead of English, but you don't care because you can get great prices on fake designer merchandise there.

  • 13. You go to an art festival on Westheimer and you're almost run down by two hand- holding cross dressers on roller blades.

  • 14. The "Killer Bees" are not stinging insects, but rather members of the Houston Astros.

  • 15. You hear everything but English spoken when you go to the Galleria to window shop. (You can't afford to buy because the prices are jacked up for all the foreign tourists.)

  • 16. You know that "Dad gummit" has nothing to do with your father's failure to practice good dental hygiene.

  • 17. You think "Y'all" is perfectly good usage if you're referring to more than one person.

  • 18. For a Chili Cookoff, you'll use anything from armadillo to frog's legs, but you know that the only GOOD chili is made with chopped (not ground)- beef, and it has NO beans and NO tomatoes.

  • 19. Spring is not the season, Katy is not the lady, and 1960 is not the year.

  • 20. Society matrons of "a certain age" still sport big hair and faces that have gone east, west, and north rather than south.

  • 21. You can leave your house, head out of town, and an hour later you still haven't left the city limits (during rush hour, you haven't left your NEIGHBORHOOD).

  • 22. You've never seen I-45 in any condition other than under construction, and you've lived here for 20-30 years.

  • 23. If the humidity is below 90 percent, it's a GOOD hair day.

  • 24. You know that "Clutch City" has nothing to do with automobile transmissions.

  • 25. The Dream" is not a fantasy.

  • 26. The only REAL Mexican food is Tex-Mex.

  • 27. A 747 with the Space Shuttle riding piggyback has actually flown low right overhead, and nobody paid any attention to it.

  • 28. You know that while saving you money, "Mattress Mac" has amassed more than the U.S. treasury.

  • 29. You're happy to have beaten Los Angeles out of a football team, but you'd rather they keep the title of "Smog Capital."

  • 30. You see nothing unusual about an eighty-something former sheriff's deputy who wears a white pompadour toupee and blue sunglasses, mispronounces names, allows televising of his frequent plastic surgeries, seems unnaturally obsessed with slime in the ice machine, and SCREAMS, "MAR-VIN ZIND-ler, EYE-witness news" into a television camera every night.



    THE RULES OF HOUSTON

  • 1. You must learn to pronounce the city name. It is "Ewe-stun", not "Huestun." Oh yea, it is pronounced "San Phil-a-pee," not "San Phil-eep" (San Felipe).

  • 2. Forget the traffic rules you learned elsewhere. Houston has its own version of traffic rules...Hold on and pray. There is no such thing as a dangerous high-speed chase in Houston. We all drive like that.

  • 3. All directions start with, "Go down to Loop 610".... which has no beginning and no end.

  • 4. The Chamber of Commerce calls getting through traffic... a "Scenic Drive."

  • 5. The morning rush hour is from 6:00AM to 10:00AM. The evening rush hour is from 3:00PM to 7:00PM. Friday's rush hour starts Thursday morning.

  • 6. If you actually stop at a yellow light, you will be rear-ended, cussed out and possibly shot. When you are the first one off the starting line, count to five when the light turns green before going, to avoid getting into any cross-traffic's way. *You can ask my sister about getting plowed down by a person who strongly believes in this one!

  • 7. Kuykendahl Road can ONLY be pronounced by a native Houstonian.

  • 8. Construction on I-10, I-45, US 59 and Loop 610 is a way of life and a permanent form of entertainment.

  • 9. All unexplained smells are explained by the phrase, "Oh, we must be in Pasadena!!!."

  • 10. If someone actually has their turn signal on, it is probably a factory defect.

  • 11. All old ladies with blue hair in a pink Cadillac have total right-of-way.

  • 12. The minimum acceptable speed on Loop 610 is 85 mph. Anything less is considered downright sissy.

  • 13. The wrought iron on windows in east Houston is NOT ornamental.

  • 14. Never stare at the driver of the car with the bumper sticker that says, "Keep honking, I'm reloading." In fact, don't honk at anyone. *THIS IS NOT A JOKE EITHER*

  • 15. If you are in the left lane, and only going 70 mph in a 60 mph zone, people are not waving when they go by.

  • 16. The Sam Houston Toll road is our daily version of NASCAR.

  • 17. If it's 100 degrees, Thanksgiving must be next weekend.

  • 18. When in doubt, remember that all unmarked exits lead to Louisiana.

  • 19. You don't have to wait for an exit to get off a freeway, just follow the ruts in the grass to the frontage road like everyone else.This is how Houston residents notify Texas Department of Transportation where exits should have been built.



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