I spent yesterday in Houston on business. Excuse me, I meant “bidniss.” I had to do some interviews with physicians around town, so I spent a good bit of time in the rent-a-car driving from airport to center, center to next center, center back to airport, etc. And sitting in traffic on the freeway. And turning around and trying to find the exit I missed because accurate road signs aren’t the city’s top priority. Or a medium priority. Or even a low priority.

Anyhow, before this trip, I don’t believe I had ever heard a radio advertisement for anything testosterone related. Ever. But by golly, yesterday I heard dozens. Literally, dozens. I found a sports talk station as I was rolling out of the Hertz lot and I just left it on (because I like sports and also, it’s far less brain-damaging than music radio is these days) and honest to sweet baby Jesus, there were at least two testosterone spots in every commercial break. I am not exaggerating, not even for effect. Testosterone treatments, testosterone centers, testosterone supplements – I kept expecting an ad for a testosterone-themed water park to surge from the speakers at any second. Never happened, but I was out of the car conducting client interviews for two or three hours so it’s possible that I missed it.

Now, I’m not here to mess with Texas. I have great friends there. Truly, I love the place despite, well, everything. But yesterday gave me the willies and has me asking some hard questions. Like, why can’t Texans get it up?

I’ve heard it alleged, by those trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with Texas, that the state suffers from a case of collective testosterone poisoning, and listening to Gov. Rick Perry swaggering around bragging about many people he has executed (a lot of them actually guilty, it turns out) sort of lends support to the theory. Listening to Texans in general lends support to the theory. Looking at the kinds of people they vote for and the policies they seem to approve of – more support still. I don’t know. But after yesterday it is abundantly clear that however much testosterone the men of the state have at the moment, they don’t believe it’s enough. Which may mean they all have low testosterone and are overcompensating in the, you know, political arena. Or it may mean that the crazy motherfuckers are in the process of mass overdosing. These may be the sorts of men who hear the warning in the Viagra commercial and say “fuck that, if I have an erection lasting more than four hours I’m a-fixin’ to take some more of them gosh-danged miracle tablets.”

No cattle, perhaps, but at least an interesting place to hang the hat.

I hate to speculate, honestly. And I’m certainly not going to go door to door asking these folks if they’d like to talk about their peckers. (I’m especially not going anywhere near the Governor’s Mansion with that question.) All I can do is report the facts as I see them. And the facts are these: I’ve been all over the US and I heard more concern about mojo levels in my first five minutes in Houston yesterday than I have in all my visits to all the other states in America combined. Whether this means they have too little testosterone, too much testosterone or are just insecure about the size of their Lyndon Johnsons I can’t say, but I’m worried for them.

Until we find out, though, I think it would be a good idea to shut down all those testosterone businesses and suspend shipments of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. If something isn’t done, and soon, there could be a stiff price to pay.