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So I’m in Texas this morning. You know, the people that brought you phrases like “all y’all”, and a culture proud of its hard line stance on justice. Motto: Try ’em, Fry ’em, Let God sort ’em out. So I pick up a Dallas paper at the hotel to read on the flight home. The major story on the local section is some poor former school teacher who was a local representative for a Tupperware type company. The only twist is, that the plastic she sells tends to require batteries, a little warm oil and vibrates. You see, she holds “parties” in women’s homes for all their friends to buy “marital aides”. Okay, maybe a little silly. I can almost picture the shy giggly women enjoying a little covert naughty fun, and maybe pleasantly surprising their significant others later that night. It all sounds pretty harmless.

Well apparently the local constabulary sent in undercover officers to raid this den of sin, and the former school teacher was arrested. It seems that while owning or using vibrators is perfectly legal, selling them is not. Well, not quite. You can sell them as long as they are sold as “novelties” or as “educational models”. That’s legal. However, if you actually sell them for the purpose for which they were designed, then that’s a crime. It seems that “selling a device for the express purpose of stimulating the nether regions of the human body” is illegal. And that was the actual quote from the law book.

Now we all know that there are tons of archaic laws on the books, and most often they are just ignored. However, the local DA seems adamant that he will prosecute this woman. In a town where adult book stores openly sell the same products as “novelties”, this woman may wind up with a criminal record for spicing up her friend’s marriages. Truth is really stranger than fiction. Makes me wonder if maybe she flunked the DA’s kid in school or something. I guess it’s also a good thing I didn’t start writing this until I was out of the state. For all I know it’s illegal to be a smart-ass there as well.

And as I’m writing this on the plane, the kid next to me is thumbing through his pocket bible while clutching his tickets. I’m not sure what to make of that. He might just be nervous. Then again, he may be reading over my shoulder and praying I’ll go back to Texas someday so they can ‘fry me proper like’.