John Derbyshire wonders whether the saying “nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs” is a real Texas saying or just something a journalist made up to look home-spin and real, sort of like a Rather-ism.
No, I’m afraid this is a real saying, though I can’t vouch for the Texas origination. Indeed, this is such an old saying that it has become a cliché, and even a laugh-line. For example, the Michael J. Fox character clumsily used the line back a while ago in “The Secret of My Success” — though now that I think about it, laugh-line no longer feels like the right term.