Talk About Chewing The Scenery

Apparently, one of our long-lost Texas relatives has made the local news:

AMARILLO, Texas -- The importance of buckling up apparently wasn't part of a Panhandle llama's thinking.

He decided to make a meal of an oversized plastic foam seat belt intended for a photo shoot yesterday for an ad campaign at the famed Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo.

The llama chowed down on the four-by-four-foot belt yesterday at the home of Stanley Marsh 3. It was the eccentric heir to an oil and gas fortune who planted 10 Cadillacs nose down in a wheat field off Interstate 40 west of Amarillo in the mid-1970s.

A replacement for this year's Texas Department of Transportation's "Click It or Ticket" campaign was crafted and taken out to the famed display for a photo shoot a couple hours later.

Robert Nash is a spokesman for Sherry Matthews Advocacy Marketing, which handles the public service announcements for the department. He says the agency decided to take the sixth annual Texas seat belt campaign to iconic locations.

The series of announcements was scheduled to begin airing May 3.

Does one serve Shiner Bock or Lone Star with a giant foam seat belt?

Incidentally, what are the odds that "Stan Marsh 3" or his crack-pot forebearer is the source of the name for South Park's Stan Marsh?

Yips! to Il Capitano, who left the link in the Tasty Bits (TM) Mail Sack.