Texans are a hearty folk, not welcoming of the seemingly frivolous lifestyle and “fandangles” of this century. The indomitable Texas spirit can be found within the frontiersmen, wranglers, trappers, leaders of the pack, and every other anachronisms from America’s Manifest Destiny. Texans may never surrender and never say die, but when they do it is usually during cardiac arrest at a startling young age. Texas is home to shockingly high rates of obesity, teen pregnancy, and death from violent crimes and accidents; as a result, life expectancy and childhood mortality rates in Texas rival Europe during the peak of the Black Death. With such a clear disdain for their own lives and the lives of their fellow Texans, it is not surprising that Texas has the highest proportion of uninsured in the United States (for those of you who do not live in the US, health insurance is something that the richest nation in the world makes its citizens pay to have a happy, healthy life because it spent the budget on Smart Bombs and Halliburton kick-backs). Deep in the heart of Texas you will find that the stars at night are big and bright, but you will also find a healthy dose of cholesterol and carcinogens. So, strap on your cowboy boots, deep fry a stick of butter, and unlearn math because we’re going to Texas! Yee-haw!
Owing almost entirely to its suspicion of medicine, elitist doctors, and basic hygiene, Texas is a veritable museum for deadly diseases extinct in the industrialized world. It’s as if the CDC dropped the biosafety level 4 freezer in Texas just to “see what would happen.” The bubonic plague, rickets, smallpox, scrofula, polio, dysentery, typhoid, and many more ailments typically found along the Oregon Trail (if you don’t get that joke, ask your mom) are common in Texas. Not content to have only what everyone else has, or had centuries ago, Texas wouldn’t be Texas if it didn’t do everything bigger and better than all of history. In addition to known deadly diseases, Texas invented a number of new ones, which includes: the “Texas frenzy,” the “Texas froth,” the “Texas sweat,” the “bloody tuffet,” and “evils.”
It should be no surprise then that the death rate for Texas infants is nearly 2 out of 3; however, the alarming ratio is counteracted by the fact that Texas doesn’t allow any form birth control other than obesity. Abortions are not permitted in Texas since “life” is considered to start at arousal and any sexual arousal that is not consummated in unprotected sex is tantamount to murder. As a result, 90% of women have their first child before their 20th birthday—the remaining 10% is divided evenly between witches and nuns.
Even more apprehensive about having someone's hands in their mouth than they are about modern medicine, Texans view dentistry as a form of witchcraft and those caught practicing it are sentenced to drowning. Minor dental procedures, such as tooth removals, are typically handled by shepherds, but any person engaged in animal husbandry could perform the duties.
All Texans enjoy a healthy portion of sugar, so much so that it is not uncommon for teeth to turn black and rot out. While in the rest of the world this would be seen as sign of addiction to crystal meth, in Texas it is a sign of prestige. Any Texan with a black and rotting maw of stinky tooth nubs is sure to have eaten his weight in sugar over the past week—which is a costly habit. The lower classes, unable to afford the requisite amount of sugar for ruining one’s mouth, will sometimes black out and/or knockout their teeth to give the appearance that they enjoy copious amounts of the sweet granules. Those Texans with a full mouth of pearly white teeth are looked at with disdain and treated with the typical derision reserved for any sub-class of people.
Unfortunately, Texas is unable to improve its situation because there is no centralized government and the state is divided up into little autonomous kingdoms lorded over by local cattle or oil barons. In this baronic system, common Texan folk are bound to a plot of land owned by a baron in return for protection and the right to work on the fields. Also, unless God appears and speaks directly to the whole state, threatening floods and locusts, shit just doesn't get done in Texas.
All Texans enjoy a healthy portion of sugar, so much so that it is not uncommon for teeth to turn black and rot out. While in the rest of the world this would be seen as sign of addiction to crystal meth, in Texas it is a sign of prestige. Any Texan with a black and rotting maw of stinky tooth nubs is sure to have eaten his weight in sugar over the past week—which is a costly habit. The lower classes, unable to afford the requisite amount of sugar for ruining one’s mouth, will sometimes black out and/or knockout their teeth to give the appearance that they enjoy copious amounts of the sweet granules. Those Texans with a full mouth of pearly white teeth are looked at with disdain and treated with the typical derision reserved for any sub-class of people.
Unfortunately, Texas is unable to improve its situation because there is no centralized government and the state is divided up into little autonomous kingdoms lorded over by local cattle or oil barons. In this baronic system, common Texan folk are bound to a plot of land owned by a baron in return for protection and the right to work on the fields. Also, unless God appears and speaks directly to the whole state, threatening floods and locusts, shit just doesn't get done in Texas.
So, that’s Texas—a caustic blend of cow pies and oil wells all wrapped in smoked bacon. We may never understand what makes Texas such a desperately backwards hovel of a state, and we never have to because there are plenty of roads that will take us around it. What we should hope for is that they finally build a solid wall along the border of Texas and Mexico, but enjoy the idea so much that they just keep building until the wall goes all the way around the whole state. Sure, walls keep things out, but they also keep things in. Fingers crossed. Just like with any infection, if you can’t get rid of it, quarantine the shit out it.
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| In Texas, cowboy hats are an erogenous zone. |
FUN FACTS about Texas:
- Capitol: Waco
- Language: Country Strong
- First governor: David Koresh
- Main export: Beef
- Main import: Beef
- Favorite condiment: Ranch
- Favorite vegetable: Ribs
- State bird: Longhorn cattle
- State animal: Walker, Texas Ranger
- Best selling vehicle: Covered wagon with four oxen
- Favorite lute music: Ricercare by Francesco da Milano (1497)
- Fine for non-Christians: $11 per day
- Fine for not wearing a cowboy hat: $18 (men) $5 (women).
- Fine for messing with Texas: Trust me, just don't mess with Texas...
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| SERIOUSLY, DO NOT MESS WITH TEXAS! |
