My ex-boyfriend Pauly has always found this phrase on bumper stickers to be amusing as an indicator of what he considers a silly mentality held by Texans. He used to look all over the place trying to purchase one for his little VW Jetta. They are actually pretty damn hard to come across when one lives in Chicago. When he and I road tripped down to Mexico via Brownsville, Texas, he made it his mission to pick one up somewhere along the way and still couldn't find one. Practically every Texas resident has one of these stickers and we were starting to wonder if you have to actually prove residence before being able to obtain one.
We ended up camping on a Texas beach unexpectedly, after having to give up all of our travel money at the Mexico/USA border to drug-dog-wielding customs guys. (its a long story.)
Sooooo, there we were camping on the beach and trying to make the best out of a situation that had long gone awry. It was kind of the off-season for Texas beaches and we soon discovered why. One night there was a huge windstorm resulting in us waking up at 4 am to find our tent almost completely buried by sand. We had to literally claw our way out of near suffocation and leave all our possessions behind, then spend hours digging our car tires out of the sand to get away. In the meantime, there was sand whipping around us at mach 10 speeds blinding us and piercing our skin. It was truly insane.
We slept for a few hours in the car once we excavated it, then went back to the dilapidated beach the next day to retrieve our things. Our entire tent containing several of our provisions and personal anemities was completely buried and took an entire day to retrieve.
When we were finally on our way back home to civilization, tired and discouraged to the point of silence, we decided to stop at a little roadside joint for some breakfast. And there, low and behold, were entire racks of various Texas pride bumper stickers, a veritable gold mine of the cheesy paraphenalia Paul had long been searching for. And there in the center of all of this was the perfect gem; somewhat of a spin off of the original slogan. It said "Don't Mess with Texas Beaches". Somehow coming across this souvenir lifted our spirits so much that we had a great time from then on and now look back fondly on our disastrous road trip. Four years later, Paul is still driving around Chicago with that sticker proudly displayed on his little coche, the story behind which no one could ever fully know.