12 Texas Habits That Follow Texans Wherever They Move

Moving trucks can’t hold everything.

But y’all always fits in the front seat when Texans move out of state.

These are the habits that follow Texans wherever they move.

Distance Measured in Hours

Ask a Texan how far something is, and you’ll get a time, never a mileage.

El Paso to Houston is a full day’s drive without leaving the state, so Texans grew up thinking in hours.

Move a Texan to Rhode Island, and the habit gets comical.

“That’s only 40 minutes” covers the entire state.

They’ll still call it a quick trip.

Brisket Standards Stay High

Texans judge every plate of barbecue against the brisket back home, and the verdict rarely flatters the new state.

They know what post oak smoke tastes like.

They know good brisket needs no sauce.

Back home, they’d wait in a two-hour line for a place that sells out by 1 p.m., so patience isn’t the problem.

Standards are.

So when the new neighborhood joint serves gray slices drowning in something sweet, the Texan takes one bite and gives a polite nod.

The polite nod means no.

Y’all Never Leaves

Y’all is the first word a Texas transplant refuses to surrender.

Why would they?

The English language never had a decent plural you, and y’all fills the gap with room to spare.

There’s even a plural for the plural.

Give a Texan’s new coworkers in Seattle a month, and half the office says “all y’all” without noticing.

The word spreads because it works.

Texans just smile and take credit.

Breakfast Tacos or Bust

The first grief of a Texas move hits at 7 a.m., when nobody within 40 miles sells a proper breakfast taco.

Bacon, egg, and cheese on a soft flour tortilla is a food group in Texas.

Gas stations sell them, and taquerias built empires on them.

Elsewhere, Texans learn to make their own.

The transplanted Texan’s kitchen always stocks tortillas, and the griddle stays out all weekend.

Whataburger Radar

Whataburger started in Corpus Christi in 1950, and to Texans, Whataburger is a landmark.

The chain has grown past 1,000 restaurants, and Texans who move track that expansion like family news.

A Texan in a new state will plan a road trip route around one.

An extra 40 minutes of driving counts as a rounding error when the reward is a Whataburger bag in the passenger seat.

Honey butter chicken biscuits taste better after two years away.

H-E-B Withdrawal

H-E-B has fed Texans since 1905, and transplants rate every new grocery store against it, harshly.

Not the produce.

Not the tortillas, made fresh in the store.

Transplants describe H-E-B to new friends with the urgency of a witness.

Relatives back home ship care packages, and a bag of H-E-B tortilla chips crossing state lines counts as an act of love.

Dr Pepper in the Cart

Check a transplanted Texan’s pantry, and you’ll find Dr Pepper where other households keep cola.

Texans grew up on the stuff and never switched.

The habit shows at restaurants, too.

A Texan orders a Dr Pepper, hears “Is Mr Pibb okay?”, and grieves openly at the table.

It’s never okay.

Some transplants even track down Dr Pepper floats for their kids, passing the loyalty to a generation that’s never seen Waco.

The Buc-ee’s Pilgrimage

When a Buc-ee’s opens within three hours of a transplanted Texan, attendance is mandatory.

The chain keeps opening stores closer to wherever they landed.

Arizona’s first location opened in June with 120 gas pumps, and more states join the list every year.

Texans bring their new neighbors along and narrate the whole visit.

The sermon on the clean restrooms is part of the experience.

The Courtesy Wave

Two fingers lifted off the steering wheel, a small nod, done.

On Texas farm roads, that wave greets every passing truck, stranger or not.

Texans also pull onto the shoulder to let faster traffic by, a courtesy that confuses drivers everywhere else.

The habit survives the move intact.

Somewhere in Ohio right now, a Texan is waving at a bewildered stranger in an F-150.

Lone Star on Everything

Texans decorate with their state’s outline the way other people decorate with monograms.

The flag flies on the new porch, whatever the new state thinks of it.

The state shape appears on cutting boards, koozies, wall art, and at least one waffle iron.

Ask a Michigan transplant to point out Michigan-shaped decor in their house, and you’ll get a shrug.

Ask a Texan, and you’ll get a tour.

Fixin' to Do Things

A Texan is never about to do something.

They're fixin' to.

The phrase survives every zip code change, along with "might could" and calling the frontage road the feeder.

A Houston transplant in Denver once asked where the feeder was and got directions to a pet store.

They kept saying feeder anyway.

Texas Comes Up Anyway

Give a transplanted Texan five minutes on any topic, and Texas enters the conversation.

The weather back home, the tacos back home, the size of everything back home.

New friends learn to budget a few extra minutes for it.

The pride runs deeper than small talk.