Hey New Yorkers. I heard you're probably going to get an outright communist as your mayor. Zohran Mamdani sounds like a real peach, and the fact that he won the Democrat Primary and is well on his way to the mayor's office has made many of you fire up your Zillow account and start looking for homes out of state.
Read: New York Real Estate Broker Flooded With Calls From Wealthy Residents Looking to Flee
I don't blame you, but let me offer you some advice. You're probably going to be tempted to come to Texas because so many companies have moved here, and you feel like you could easily land a job. I could see why you'd think that, but let me tell you about Texas.
You really don't want to move here. Texas is like Hell, only worse, because the living conditions here are so chaotic and difficult that the devil himself thinks it's a bit much.
Let's start with the weather. People joke about how hot it is in Texas, but hot doesn't fully describe what happens here. Texas isn't just hot; the air is the essence of heat. When you walk outside, you have .02 seconds before you start sweating, even if you're in the shade. The humidity is so thick that you don't just walk through the heat, you swim through it.
And that's during the fall.
You want to know why so much research on the sun is conducted here in Texas? It's because it's a 30-minute commute from here to the ball of fire baking the landscape so hard that I could cook an entire brisket in the pit and never fire up the grill. I could just close the lid and walk away, and when I come back the next day, I'll have a perfectly cooked hunk of meat.
Oh, and don't get me started on our winters, which go between being fall's challenged cousin and the realm of Glaciarch, Lord of the Ice Liches. For a few days, his icy spell of frost and woe covers Texas, destroying water pipes, making roadways undrivable, and making leftists squawk incessantly about climate change.
Spring must be good, though, yeah?
No.
Once Glaciarch, Lord of the Ice Liches and King of the Hwy 45 Shutdown, returns to his slumber, the onslaught of pollen begins. Keep in mind, we're not into spring yet. It's still winter, but the pollen has already begun, because Texas is home to a breed of mountain cedar whose solitary purpose is to make you feel like you're gonna die, and trust me, you're going to want to give it what it wants. Cedar pollen in Texas is so noxious that it should be banned by the Geneva Convention for being a biological weapon.
Then, as we move on into spring, the other plants start joining the chorus, including oak and ragweed, and I hope your life insurance and will are up-to-date, because people get lung infections from all this stuff, and hospitals are filled with the ghosts of people who died from the excessive release of horny trees. Don't think being inside will help you escape it. The pollen clings to your hair and clothes, gets into your couches and carpets, your pets will store it in their fur, and you will spend the GDP of small European countries on air filters and purifiers trying to make sure Groot doesn't become a squatter in your home.
Oh, and let's talk about the wildlife.
Have you ever seen a rattlesnake, a water moccasin, or a copperhead? You better hope you see one, because if you don't, you're going to put your foot down in the wrong place and suddenly find yourself in the big two-step in the sky.
Ever seen Mad Max? That happens here in Texas, only the raiders are packs of wild boars that will, from time to time, create super packs that storm land and decimate everything in their way, including you. This is a true story: My great-grandmother's land was raided by a super back, and they had shot so many defending the ranch that they ran out of ammo, and we're using the butt of their rifles while on top of cars to fend off these pigs like it was the damn Alamo.
Luckily, the mosquitoes weren't too bad that day, because they're so big they'll carry you off if there are enough of them around. Do you hear what I'm saying? Our mosquitoes are so big they've got bones. They'll suck so much of your blood out of you that they can legally be considered blood relatives and file as dependents. But don't worry, if they won't get you, our chihuahua-sized fire ants will.
Ever seen an armadillo before? They're cute as a button... and carry a literal strain of leprosy. They're adorable little disease grenades that will give you a skin condition only Jesus could cure until relatively recently.
Texas spends a lot of time and effort trying to kill you, and it has a longer list of victims than Hillary Clinton, is what I'm saying here.
Oh, but it's so big! There's plenty of room!
No there's not!
Texas is split up into three zones.
There's the outer-wilds where ranchers and farmers live, and where a New Yorker wouldn't last for five minutes. Then there are suburbs where you will be compacted in with every other person on the planet who's already moved here, and then there are the big cities, and Texas's infrastructure can't keep up with the influx.
I-35 has been under construction since 1865, and it's still not done. The road goes on forever, and the construction never ends. The end of road construction in Texas is coming soon... indefinitely. Getting from one end of the city to another requires at least two changes of clothes, and enough food and water to last you a fortnight. The roadways are so cluttered and busy, and filled with out-of-state immigrants like yourself, that there is no pleasant drive; it's the worst level in Mario Kart. You will start the journey as Clark Griswold, and you will end it as The Joker.
Then there's Texas culture. Do you like Texas? Texans do, and we're going to tell you about it all the time. It's weird if you don't own a pair of boots. If you don't say "howdy" to someone once a week, Texas Rangers will show up at your door and haul you off in the middle of the night for failure to Texas.
Everyone here has a gun. Our grandmothers own a gun. The people who have no desire to own a gun own a gun. When a Texan is born, they receive a baby Peacemaker that they must learn to operate by the time they can walk, because they have to shoot mosquitoes that swoop down to drag them away.
How did we become so obnoxious? Because when you live in a place that is this hostile to human life and survive, you tend to get a little chip on your shoulder and start thinking we're at the top of the American food chain, and the feeling isn't undeserved.
Speaking of food. Ours should be illegal, not because it's bad, but because it's too good. Brisket isn't a chunk of well-prepared, slow-cooked meat; it's part of a quasi-religion. When you die, and you're invited to the Lord's table, Texans are 99.9 percent sure our brisket is the centerpiece. We will challenge you to pistols at dawn if you try to tell us we're wrong about that. Taylor Swift wishes she could have the same lines at her concerts that some of our BBQ joints get on the daily. Some of them are so popular that they cannot operate except for a few days a week because the supply cannot meet the demand.
Are you willing to meet God? Because if you eat at Schoepf's BBQ in Belton, you will see Him, AND YOU ARE NOT READY. It will ruin you forever. All other foods will taste like dirt in your mouth after that experience. Nothing will satisfy you. You will rock back and forth in a fetal position in the darkest corner of your home, mumbling about how you saw the third revelation.
Do you really want that to be the rest of your life? To not find joy in any other foods? That's what will happen to you. It's the call of the siren. Do not answer it.
And then there's Tex-Mex, the fusion to end all fusions. We'll hand you a burrito the size of your femur, jam-packed with everything that stirs the dopamine center of your brain, hand you a frozen margarita alongside it, then serve you some beef tacos made from skirt steak so well-prepared that we don't need to season it with salt because your tears of joy will suffice!
When you've finished and can't possibly fit anymore in, we'll serve dessert.
What's for dessert?
ENCHILADAS! YOU'RE NOT READY. YOUR COLON WILL FILE A RESTRAINING ORDER AGAINST YOU! MEN HAVE GONE MAD AT UNCLE JULIOS!
And don't fill up on chips.
"Oh yeah, well we have WaWa"
We have a Beaver, and his restrooms are so clean and fantastic that heads of state vacation in them. Buc-ee's has a JERKY BAR and so many fuel pumps that Saudi princes take notes!
All this to say that Texas is not the place for you, New Yorker. You can't handle the extremes here. If the weather and the animals don't get you, the heart disease will. Your experiences here will remake you into something unrecognizable from what you were before.
Stay away. You can't handle this.
Go to Alaska. They've got a ton of room up there.