[Mind-numbed Robot]

Everything in Texas either bites, stings, itches, hurts or smells bad. Other than that it's a pretty good place.

Jealousy is not befitting a man of your intellect.

[groanup]

My former in-laws lived in Brownsville, Giddings, etc back in the 70's. There was one house they bought near Giddings, new, that had most common species of pit viper living in the back yard. My kids were about 8 and 4 and ran around the back yard with abandon. The snakes were ubiquitous but my kids avoided them somehow. Whatcha gonna do? Tell the kids to sit in the kitchen?

Less troubling but no less uncomfortable were the scorpions that lived in the house. The rug was reddish, brown shag and the scorpions were reddish, brown shag. One could only see them if they moved which some of them did and some of them didn't.

It was a telling day when my ex-father-in-law let out a humongous scream after toweling off with a scorpion laden towel.

Ah, I remember it well, the evenings when we would all sit and drink beer, eating nacho chips with hot sauce on the floor of that brand new house, watching the scorpions crawl across the floor.

[groanup]

Two more:

My ex-father-in-law witnessed one of his buddies putting on a pair of those high, lace up boots. The poor sob had laced them up for five minutes when the scorpion began to sting. It took him a couple of minutes to get the damn things off.

Another one that proves everything in Texas bites, stings, itches, hurts and smells bad is the canoe story. I decided to buy a canoe trailer and two canoes from my father-in-law. When I went out to load the canoes on the trailor I turned them over and they were both full of black widow spiders.

You know how the song goes: "If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band". Well, if you're gonna walk around in Texas, you gotta have a repellant. LOL>