Quick Efficient Help for House, Heart and Home

Ahhh, there’s nothing like visiting relatives in Texas to get a new perspective on life. I grew up in Texas, but I had forgotten how dangerous it really is. [smile]  I have four boys and a little girl who love to explore. Here’s a little sampling of the instructions my kids got at the first three homes we stayed in–within 5 minutes of arriving:

House A (ranch in South Texas): “Yes, you can go out and play in the fields but watch out for rattlesnakes. Here’s what they sounds like. [rattling sound]”

House B (outskirts of small town in South Texas): “Watch out for rattlesnakes. We don’t get a lot of them but I just killed one by the garage about a month ago.”

House C (in the country in Central Texas): “You can play outside but if you go off the porch, be sure you have shoes on because we have a lot of scorpions.”

So at the third house, one son asks, “Do scorpions get in your house?” At which point someone launches into a details about how and when. I’m in the background giving the line across the throat sign so they don’t scare the wits out of them. Too late. That son had to sleep in the room with me and my husband, certain that the house was destined to be invaded by scorpions that night. The good news is that the only scorpion the boys saw was one they found when they went on a scorpion hunt the next day.

I’m trying to think of the moral of this story, but I can’t settle on just one. Here’s a sampling of what I came up with.

• If you don’t like to live dangerously, don’t go to Texas.
• If you happen to have scorpions in your house, don’t tell your guests under the age of 15.
• If you want to avoid rattlesnakes and scorpions, stay with your relatives in the big cities (the strongest warning we got there was to leave the outside lights off because they attract bugs).

If you see a different moral or have your own Texas stories, feel free to leave them in the comments section.

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