Culture Shock

Never in my life have I had such a unique day that I felt the need to write down its events, until October 31st, 2009. That day, my friends and I decided to get up early, dress in our Halloween costumes, and go out to eat at a restaurant in Canyon Lake, which is about 45 minutes out of San Antonio. Appropriately named Flapjacks, this restaurant has about 30 different “flavors” of pancakes on its menu—from apple, to cinnamon roll, to s’mores. However, there was more in store for me on this trip than just a scrumptious breakfast; I also received a decent dose of culture shock.
Before I moved to Texas, I always thought that the rest of the United States was socially similar to California. And even now that I live in another state, I still think that our cultures our relatively uniform. However, I saw two things on my drive to Canyon Lake, what I would call the “country,” that surprised me, to say the least. First of all, I saw the corpse of an adult deer on the side of the freeway. We weren’t surrounded by fields or wilderness; no, we were still in the city, surrounded by shopping centers, and there was a deer who had been hit by a car. The first thing I thought was “How did the deer get out here?” So, I asked someone in the car, who was a native Texan, if this type of road kill was a common occurrence. He told me it was, especially further out in the country. I was blown away. My hometown is a busy area, but there are deer living on the outskirts. However, I have never seen anything bigger than an opossum in the street. I felt sorry for the poor deer.
However, the most shocking thing I saw was a few minutes later. There was a billboard encouraging passerby to keep an eye out for poachers. I could not believe my eyes. Call me naïve, but I didn’t even think poachers existed in the U.S., much less that Texas had a problem with them. Whenever I learned about poachers in school, they were always portrayed as the exotic bad guys. So, I figured if I ever ran into a poacher, it would be while on a safari or jungle trek. I never guessed I’d have to worry about them in Southern Texas.
Well, y’all sure did surprise me.