“Mountain lion in Texas” (joke)
A “mountain lion in Texas” joke is told of a mountain lion who ate Texans, but still didn’t have enough to eat. The mountain lion would scare the crap and then knock the wind out of the Texans, leaving nothing much left of them. The joke dates in print to at least 1992.
A similar joke is “Give a Texan an enema and you can bury him in a matchbox.”
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From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Paul Cartwright)
Date: 19 Feb 1992 20:55:16 -0800
Local: Wed, Feb 19 1992 11:55 pm
Subject: Re: Texas Humor (Was Texas Geography Trivia (fact))
Two mountain lions escape from the L.A. Zoo. They decide to get out of California. When they get to Oklahoma, they decide to split up to shake off their pursuers. One goes south to Texas and the other heads north.
A few months later, the one which had headed north decided to go see how the one in Texas was faring. He trots on down and finds a thin, mangy, starving creature that used to be his friend.
“What happened to you?”
“I’ve been eating Texans, and there’s just no nutrition in them.”
“Let’s go hunting. You need some food.”
So they go hunting. Pretty soon they come to a Circle K and wait by the pick up truck for the owner. A 5’6”, 200 pound, bearded, red T shirted man carrying a case of Lone Star steps out. The starving mountain lion jumps out, roars, attacks the man and eats him.
The other mountain lion pads over, shaking his head side to side, “There’s your problem. Your scaring the shit of them. Don’t you know when you scare the shit out of a texan, there’s nothing left but skin and bones?”
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From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Felix E. Tilley Jr.)
Date: 1995/05/23
Subject: Re: DESPERATELY seeking TEXAN jokes
Well, there was these two mountain lions along the Red River between Texas ‘n’ Oklahoma. The Oklahoma lion looked sleek and well fed. The Texas mountain lion was scrawny and his ribs were plainly visible.
OK: The Oklahoma mountain lion said to the Texas mountain lion, “What’s the matter with you. You look terrible. What’s going on?”
TEX: The Texas mountain lion says “I am having trouble getting enough to eat with these Texans”.
OK: “Well, just how are you doing it with the Texans?”
TEX: “Well, first I roar at them, then I pounce on them, then I eat what’s left.”
OK: “I see the problem. When you roar at them, you scare the shit out of them. When you pounce on them, you knock the wind out of them. After that, all that’s left is a pair of faded blue jeans and a dirty tee shirt.”
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From: “Eugene D. Gallagher”
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 11:19:17 -0400
Local: Wed, Aug 22 2001 11:19 am
Subject: A Texas Vacation?
There is a great op/ed in the Boston Globe about Bush’s Texas vacation:
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/234/oped/A_Texas_vacation_That_s_an…
A Texas vacation? That’s an oxymoron
By Scot Lehigh, Globe Staff, 8/22/2001
THE TWO MOUNTAIN lions had decided to spend the year hunting humans. One would stalk his prey in New Mexico, the other in Texas. In the spring, they’d meet to see how they’d done.
Spring came. Arriving plump and self-satisfied, the New Mexico puma was shocked to see his friend reduced to skin and bones.
’‘Lord, son, you look awful,’’ he said.
’‘I’m about starved,’’ the Texan-hunting catamount confessed.
’‘Must be something wrong,’’ said the first mountain lion. ‘‘Tell me what you’ve been doing.’’
’‘I’ve been using the old, tried and true methods. I crouch on a limb until I see one coming. Then I roar loud as I can. And then I pounce.’’
The New Mexico puma shook his head. ‘‘It’s a wonder you’re not dead,’’ he said. ‘‘Remember, you’re hunting Texans. When you roar, you scare the crap out of ‘em. When you pounce, you knock the wind out of ‘em. With Texans, there’s nothing left but boots and buckles.’’
That (slightly modified) joke, from Cormac McCarthy’s ‘‘The Crossing,’’ is as apt a summation of Texans as I’ve ever run across, though Ed Muskie used to tell a good story about a laconic Mainer listening to a Texan blowing hard about the size of his ranch.