Image-Conscious Texans

You really have to hand it to Texans...mostly because they'll rip your arm off to get it otherwise. Seriously, I think Texas is the only state which thinks of itself as a country, and the folks there go to every end possible to let us Northerners know about it. My dad, a Texan born and bred (shouldn't "bred" come before "born"? I never understood that expression) was fond of saying to me, "Son, there's NO PLACE other than Texas." I mean, this guy was in WWII and surely realized when he was on the ship in San Francisco or in the jungles in the Phillipines that he was no longer in Texas, but he was steadfast in his belief that the world began in East Texas and ended in El Paso or whatever place existed west of there. I'm certain it was a Texan who invented the huge "#1" foam hand and the monstrous foam cowboy hat so popular at county fair chance game booths. Minnesotans have Paul Bunyan, but I suspect he was a younger sibling of Pecos Bill. All of this might be interesting, you say, but so what? Well, I really hadn't given it much thought, either, until I went to the hotel lobby for a waffle. Generally, I don't get waffles since I seldom eat breakfast "out", but it was free...I'm cheap...a natural. Imagine my surprise when the waffle iron turned out to be what is pictured above: a griddle formed in the shape of Texas! I was astounded. Is there a store that just sells "in the shape of Texas" stuff? No other state, to my knowledge, has such an ego issue. Can you imagine a waffle iron shaped after, say, Hawaii? How about socks in the shape of California (well, maybe they already are, come to think of it!) Is a cooking utensil in the shape of Oklahoma too much to envision? See, that's the point: no other state is so self-absorbed. Psychologist would probably make a comment about self-esteem or the size of physical apparatus. I don't know. I just know that I've never seen a waffle iron that wasn't round or rectangular until last week.
I may never see Texas in the same light again.
And, by the way, the stars at night were NOT big and bright when I was there, though I WAS deep in the heart of Texas.