Texas Attempted: The Authentic Texas experience

The sign in the restaurant looms over me, captivating my full attention. It is mahogany, the words etched in brilliant gold.

"Ignore this sign"

I stand transfixed, lost in a philosophical spiral that would have given Socrates the shits. But in time I move on, and return to the booth where the rest of my family waits. They arrived late last night, and this is our first meal out together.

'Theash Margaritas are rheally nicesh!' says my mother. I nod, and look at the arse of a passing waitress. A woman carrying food - is there any sight more pleasing? According to Adam: no.

After placing our order, we are handed small devices, like Gameboys. The waitress smiles and points to a screen next to us. I look at her arse for guidance, but nothing is forthcoming, and so I lift my eyes to the screen.

"We are awaiting more players. Your game of Texas Holdem will begin shortly..."

I look down at my device and see that I have been dealt an Ace and a 10.

We feast like kings; we dine like pigs. King-pigs, scoffing tacos, burgers and chilli-fries. A waitress takes my dad's half-empty cola; he frowns. The waitress returns with a full cola; he looks at my mother nervously. I watch her arse as she leaves (the waitress's that is), and then place another bet on my poker hand.

I lose $500 to someone called Peeweegirl, and my shame is paraded on the widescreens all around the restaurant. The locals chuckle and look around for the dumb Brit, but I have already dodged behind my mother's margarita glass.

Everyone in this restaurant seems to be beautiful. Parents shepherd small lines of perfectly formed kids to their seats, and supermodels take orders from the bastard-spawn of Brad Pitt. My goblinoid family peers on from the booth and continues feasting.

'Guacamole?' says the passing waitress. I lift my gaze from her breasts and go to respond.

'No - English.' answers my brother.
'We're from Boston.' clarifies my mother.
'The real one.' adds my father.

'Yes please.' I say, sparing the waitress from her suffering.

Having paid the bill with a single note, we move on to Sherman, where the only tanks are the Soccer-Mum wagons that roam the freeways. My father argues with the female sat-nav, disputing her every decision. I keep up a constant narration of death-averting instructions.

"That's one-way, Dad."
"The light's red, Dad."
"Car, Dad."
"The light's red, Dad."

I am the saviour unrewarded, the angel unacknowledged.

We spend the morning in a museum getting shouted at.

'Please don't touch, Sir.' says the old lady. I recoil my hand from the newspaper article entitled "Negroid cremated in courthouse" and smile apologetically. We are given a tour of the Red River museum, the guide continually interrupted by my parents, who used to have most of the exhibits in their home when they were young. The tour guide explains that America is a very young country, and then shouts at me as I reach for the skin of a rattlesnake.

Next up, it's the antique shops, where my parents go to exhibit their jokes.

'Where you folks from?' asks the attendant. I sigh in the corner as I play with a stuffed polar bear.

'We're from Boston.' says my mother.
'The real one.' adds my father.

They laugh. I tug at the bottle of coca-cola sewn to the polar bear's paw.

My brother and I are the walking dead. We shuffle up and down the aisles of the antique malls, stalking our parents as they drift from item to item. But in time we find our respective distractions. My brother notices a sign saying "Complimentary coffee" and stands there, paralyzed like a true Englishman.

And as for me, I find a stack of old Playboys amongst the cutlery sets. One of the magazines proudly introduces a lovely blond by the name of Pamela Anderson. Man, that girl could do with a boob job. I sit in the corner and nurse my sexual frustration (see PWR1 Essay), while my brother tentatively reaches for the coffee...

Finally an Art Gallery. Every picture has a bowl of complimentary mints next to it. Very strange... I ask for the print of a rather stunning painting entitled The Muse.

'I'm sorry, we're all out of that one.' says the attendant, sipping a glass of sprite. I leave dejectedly.

We return to the car, where my father resumes his argument with the sat-nav device. I play with the buttons on the console, trying to change the navigation voice to something non-American and non-female. Alas, I am unsuccessful, and we spend the rest of the afternoon with my father defying the presumptuous machine.

"That's a red light, Dad."
"Drive on the right, Dad."

At last we return to the hotel, and I retrieve the shower gel bottles that I nabbed from the maid's trolley on my way out. My brother lumbers into our room and turns on the TV, flicking through the channels, whilst my mother puts some teabags in the coffee maker.

I go to the bathroom and admire my new set of toiletries, including the hair gel designed for African-Americans. I didn't realise that it was Afro-gel at the time, and no one stopped me. I run a handful of it through my hair and then go up to the bar in the tower that overlooks Lake Texoma.

The tower is under siege from mother-fucker-class wasps, fat from chicken wraps and sprite, and I bat at them with my laptop as I run the gauntlet to the Wi-Fi spot.

'So where you from?' asks the bartender, a burly man who massages cows at the weekend (don't ask).

'Boston.' I joke, adjusting my afro, 'The real one.'

In my over-inflated scrotum, I hear the sighs of a million sperm, lamenting my future children.


Things are looking up. I used the hot-tub last night and my sexual frustration has abated somewhat. Don't worry - I didn't do anything disgusting; it just relaxed me. Masturbation by osmosis I suppose; there were a lot of suds. But maybe that's just the American bubble bath.

I crawl out of bed and eat a complimentary jelly bean. Peanut flavour - fuck! I wretch and then go down to the business centre for a sneaky internet session, where I am intercepted by the complimentary Texan weirdo. It's the bartender from last night, who massages cows at the weekend. I stare at him as he talks to me, looking for a sign on his shirt that reads "Ignore this man". There is none, but nevertheless in the bathroom down the hallway I hear Socrates scream as he grips the toilet-rail again.

'You Brits have got it all wrong,' says the bartender, who's called Don. First Officer Chamberlain? Surely not. 'You think us Texans are all about jumping on the back of a horse screaming "Yeehah!" and then galloping round the ranch like a crazy person.'

In the toilet, Socrates curses as the laser-sensor misinterprets his squirming and prematurely flushes.

'But you see, all that does is stress the cattle out, and makes for some real tough steak. If you want the good meat you gotta make the cattle feel at ease. A rub here, a brushdown there, and you'll get that steak real juicy.'

I stare transfixed. Maybe the Welsh had the right idea all along. The next time my bacon's not up to scratch I'll have to vault the fence and give a pig a Swedish massage. It wouldn't be my first time, if you know what I mean.

Clearly Bartender Don is trying to dispel the Texan stereotype. I ponder telling him about my osmotic-jaccuzi-wank and how it made me a little less English, but Don has already gone off to the bathroom to show Socrates how a real man drops his load.

I return to the hotel room and eat a jelly bean. Liquorice flavour - fuck! I then fish the teabags out of the coffee-maker and wonder what today has in store. More antagonism from machines? More waitress-arses floating in the void? Cow masseurs yelling at me not to touch things? Maybe I could squeeze in another session in the hot-tub...

I make a tactical withdrawal from the jelly bean bowl and put some more afro-gel in my hair.

At last the family has an action meeting. My brother eats his toast and porridge, staring at the TV screen as he stirs his tea counter-clockwise, while my Dad puts on a jumper and mutters something about grasshoppers. With the Autistic half of the family catered for, me and my mother discuss our plans as we straighten the picture frames around the hotel room.

'What's the plan?'
'It's completely up to you luv.'
'Can we go to the casino?'
'No.'
'How about the Frontier Village and the Cowboy Shop?'
'Okay.'

The conclave is victorious. I make a fresh offensive on the jelly bean bowl. Vegemite flavour - fuck!

Later on, I turn off the sat-nav to avoid further defiance from my father, and instead give verbal direction.

"Turn left here Dad."
"Freeway exit on the right Dad."
"It's a red light Dad."

We enter the Frontier Village and my father slams on the brakes, pointing at something up ahead, 'Look at that! Is that a coyote?'

I remove my face from the dashboard, 'No Dad, it's a basset.'

The puppy trots across the road in front of the car, followed by the owner, who gives us a funny look. I wish my mother had a margarita glass to hide behind.

The Frontier Village is closed, so we decide to walk around the lake nearby. We park by a sign that reads "No Fireworks". I consider taking it home and giving it to my girlfriend, but I doubt she'd see the funny side of it.

I walk around the lake, my brother directly behind me with his head lowered. It's like a scene from Rain Man. And behind that my dad zigzags the path, muttering about the trees. Bloody Autistics! I'd recommend the gas chamber, but they'd only talk us out of it.

I forge ahead, seeking an authentic Texas experience. I want to smell leather, whip a horse, watch a cow having shiatsu. But Texas has yet to yield the Bisto moment. As I go off into the woods for a piss, I hope that a rattlesnake will take a shine to my todger. That would be authentic. But given the prevalence of my erections lately I'd probably split the poor thing apart the moment it chowed down.

Or maybe I will encounter a bear. If it had a coca-cola bottle sewn to its paw I could play Androcles, otherwise I'd have to climb a tree. I picture my family getting run down by the bear whilst I dangle from the branches of a fig tree, but then I push the thought to one side. It's not a very pleasant thing to think about. I've seen that film with Anthony Hopkins and the bear, where they have to join forces to destroy a marauding Alec Baldwin. Not pleasant at all.

After circumambulating the lake and wondering what mad fucker decided to strategically place pumpkins along the path, we return the car. Then we go to the Cowboy Shop where I buy a lovely coat that makes me look yummy.

Next we begin the search for food. We walk through a gargantuan shopping mall where people shout "Hi! How y'all doing?" from all sides. It's like being stalked by sycophantic ninjas. We ask them for food, but they have none, their smiles like effervescent sprite.

The nice lady on the sat-nav directs us to the nearest Denny's, much to my father's consternation. There we dine like king-pigs fresh from the massage parlour. I order nachos and a Philly cheesesteak, and my mother dials a 9 and a 1 on her cellphone as I tuck in.

Thankfully there are no levitating waitress-arses here, just a really tall guy and a really short guy. We get the tall guy, who wears a leather jacket over his uniform. Clearly they are keeping the midget in reserve.

'You look like a milkshake kinda guy.' he says to me as I stuff down the last of my cheesesteak. I wonder what he is insinuating. He gives me something big and lumpy to suck on. Damn, that's good milkshake. Some lucky cow must've got a facial and a footrub this morning.

The midget watches us as we stagger back to the car. I continue to yearn for my authentic Texas experience, and I look back towards the midget, wondering if he and the tall guy would take me out on the town tonight. But then my mother pulls me into the car and takes me to Walmart.

Walmart sells everything. I ask them for a ceramic Bulgarian cheese grater made by asthmatic pygmies. They ask me what colour I want it in. But joking aside, this place is cheap. I drag an industrial-sized tub of vaseline to the checkout and smile at the attendant with my cracked lips. I wonder what kind of industry uses vaseli.. wait, don't answer that.

On the way out I am stopped and searched by the People Greeter, her ninja suit replaced by a woolly sweater. She rifles through my bag but finds no sprite, and so lets me through unmolested. Above the Walmart entrance is a sign reading "Tire and Lube". I consider taking it home to give to my girlfriend, but....

We return to the hotel and put some teabags in the coffee maker. There is a herd of Christians outside, awaiting a conference and arguing over who will pray for each other the most. I hope their prayers will be answered - surely God knows that a good massage produces the tenderest meat.

As I wait for my coffee I glare at the jelly bean bowl. Like Saladin. My mother refolds all my clothes - it's her prerogative - and complains about the way I packed my cashmere coat.

'This is proper cashmere!' she protests.
'Yeah.' I reply. If anyone knows how I should have answered this question, please let me know.