Why you should never offend a Texan

Yesterday, I had picked up a copy of the NYU Law School newspaper while visiting the school. In that paper, I had read an editorial criticizing NYU's "state-ist" attitude (they made up that word, not me). Apparently, law professors at NYU have a frequent tendency to make jokes about how laws in Texas are not the same as those in the other states because Texans are crazies who own lots of guns. As someone who spent the last 16 years of her life in Texas, I would prefer not to think of myself as a nut. However, I do believe that there is a grain of truth to the stereotype.

Last summer, I used to work as a "community organizer" (i.e. professional panhandler) for this shady political organization called Texas Campaign for the Environment.

By the way, as a word of advice, never work as a "community organizer." It is the worst job ever. I quit after four days.

Anyway, my job was to go door-to-door asking people to donate money to the environment. (None of the money actually goes to the environment, by the way. All of the funds collected are needed to pay for various expenses of the panhandling program, such as transportation and salaries.)

Obviously, people rarely ever appreciated being harassed for donations and thus often reacted belligerently. If I had earned a dollar for every time someone shouted profanity at me and slammed the door, I would probably be able to purchase a car. I quickly became accustomed to this type of treatment.

One day, however, I encountered a particularly hostile resident while panhandling. I began by reciting my spiel, but this resident did not respond with a single word. He merely reached across the doorway to an area where an umbrella stand would be located and grabbed a shotgun.

In Texas, if someone crosses your property line, it is completely legal to shoot the trespasser. You are not even required to give any sort of warning before doing so. So...since the irate resident could legally shoot me and getting shot is not very high on my list of goals in life, I ran as fast as I could until I was at least a mile away from that house.

Moral of the story? Never offend a Texan since you would not know if they have a gun on them (They probably do).