Dear Blacktable.com
I read your article, "SIX THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT: TEXAS" and as a former Texan, I can relate. However, as everything is bigger in Texas, I submit that there are at least 6 more things you missed, and I've listed them below.

1. TEXANS ENJOY MODERN CONVENIENCES
Too often, Americans form opinions around TV shows like “Hee Haw” or “The Dukes of Hazzard” (or FOX “news”). When confronting a Texan for the first time, questions like "Do people ride horses everywhere?" and, "What's it like to use an outhouse?" and, "Why would you eat that?” are frequent. The truth is, even in the smallest towns, most families have both indoor plumbing and shoes. I have never known a house (or trailer) without a toilet, although older residents may be able to recall the day they "done got us one of them dang ol' commodes!"

One might ride a horse to exercise or train it, but that's pretty much the only time. Whenever prophylactics are needed from the gas station, for example, one would take the car. It's even possible that Texas was the birthplace of the "tailgate party" -- a ritual in which teenagers drive to a remote area, park, and lower the gates of their pickup trucks. On this "tailgate" it is customary to sit, talk, drink, smoke, and often start a family. That would be pretty ridiculous (damn near impossible!) on the back of a horse.

2. NO TEXAS TOWN IS WITHOUT BOTH A DAIRY QUEEN AND AT LEAST ONE BAPTIST CHURCH
An area's population itself is not enough to put it on the map. No amount of paved roads, community organizations, schools, elected officials, or postal codes will make you an official city. Once you put up a DQ, though, all bets are off. Some towns hold City Council meetings right in the back booth.

If you want to celebrate God in both his houses, you'll visit the Dairy Queen right after Sunday services at your local Baptist Church. And when I say "local" I mean it. You'll often find multiple Baptist churches within the same small town; as many as 1 church for every 5 residents. People need a sense of community, and more importantly, a sense that their community is better than yours. Attacking one's religion is the best, most effective way of achieving this (the ultimate "Yo Mama" snap). So what happens when an entire population worships the same God? Luckily for Baptists, the Bible and all of Christianity's rules are malleable enough to accommodate different factions of the exact same bullshit mythology.

3. BAD MANNERS WILL COST YOU THE ELECTION
The 1990 Texas Gubernatorial race between Ann Richards and Clayton Williams was one of the meanest, dirtiest, most-expensive, tricked-out campaigns ever. As you can imagine, the chances of Ms. Richards, a Democratic, (recovering) alcoholic, (possibly lesbian) WOMAN, defeating a hat-wearing, chaw-chewing, Republican good-ole-boy oil millionaire like Williams were slimmer than Mary Kate Olsen in a Bret Easton Ellis Novel.

Both candidates were accused of low-down dirty mudslinging tricks, and both were somewhat guilty. But even when Williams was exposed as an ignorant, sexist, greedy right-wing hypocrite (sound familiar?), his support continued to rise (sound eerily familiar?). Claytie refused to debate the Lady. He became flustered in interviews; he couldn't recall his own voting record on certain issues. He even admitted to not paying any 1986 income taxes. But his PR cherry-on-top was his hilarious joke about how rape was like the weather: "If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it!"

Only no one laughed.

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