Houston Options

[Mommy]

I just got back to Austin from my first trip to Houston ever. I drove there yesterday and came back today. I know that isnt much time to observe, but I think that Houston has some of the best drivers in Texas. I know that traffic is a bitch, but I like how Houston people drive. If they need over, they get over. They dont do this stupid bullshit of slowing down with their blinker on, backing up traffic behind them, and waiting until someone is finally nice enough to let them over. Everyone complains about Houston traffic....yeah its bad, but it would be a lot worse if people drove differently there. Just a random observation.

[kcroxyoursox]

I too love Houston and miss it terribly (I hate Fort Worth where every 7.2 seconds you're in some different little crappy city)

*Houston has Java Juice (bet no one else here has been there)

Here are a few rules about Houston:

1. You must learn to pronounce the city name. It is "Hue-stun," not "Ewe-stun", or "house-tun" Oh yea, it is pronounced "San Phil-ee-pay," not "San Phil-eep" (San Felipe). Enunciate, you idiots!

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.

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 phrases, "Oh, we must be in Pasadena!" or "God, I hate Baytown!" or "Mmm, smell that Texas City!"

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. In turn, the minimum speed on Westheimer is at least 45mph...

13. The rod 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.

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. Beltway 8 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.

22. If you live in Katy and I live on the south side of Houston, we'll never hang out

23. The best thing about being drunk between 2-5 am is Whataburger will serve both breakfest and normal menus.

24. You are always able to be pulled over by any police vehicle, even if you were just given a ticket.

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

26. Else-where, they are called frontage roads... Here in Houston, they are called FEEDER roads, so dont look stupid when we say "Exit the feeder road and use the loop-d-loop


YOU KNOW YOU'RE FROM HOUSTON WHEN:

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.

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

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 an HEB Central Market to buy bread and milk (but you have to dress up!)

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The "Killer Bees" are not stinging insects.

You hear everything but English spoken when you go to the Galleria to window-shop.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.)

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

If the humidity is below 90 percent, it's a good hair day.

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

"The Dream" is not a fantasy.

The only real Mexican food is Tex-Mex.

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

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

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

You see nothing unusual about an 80-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.