Highway 16 from the border to San Antonio
Tiny cities skitter by on little possum feet
Crawling through the speed trap past the Freer Buckaroos
Then Tilden, Cross, Jourdanton, and sweet Poteet

I’m on my way to god knows where
Don’t ask me what I’m doing there
Lengthy explanations are a bore
But I’ve ended up at Bubba’s Inconvenience Store.

In my limited experience down deep South Texas way
I’ve added these two pearls of wisdom to my repertoire
It is not a good idea to pick the prickly pear bloom
and if you hit an armadillo, it can sure screw up your car

I find a phone and dial away
Thank the lord for AAA
They’ll take a couple hours, maybe more
to tow my car from Bubba’s Inconvenience Store.

There are plastic picnic tables, so I settle in to wait
with a bottle of Ozarka and a candy bar
My attention wanders to the people who are passing through
and the vehicles outside that dwarf my tiny car

It’s just a minnow in a sea
of pickup trucks and SUVs
a guppy gasping on the sandy shore
beached and bummed at Bubba’s Inconvenience Store.

The cashier gets to talking to me, asks me where I’m from
says he went to court reporting school in San Antone
With three months left to graduate, they shut the sucker down
Now the state says he still owes them for his student loan

He’s worked here almost half a year
But there’s really nothing for him here
He’s twenty-two and ready to explore
the world beyond old Bubba’s Inconvenience Store.

So he’s marking time and working hard and saving all his dough
He wants to get the proper training for a serious career
What he really wants to do is be a stylist to the stars
and Beeville Beauty College ain’t too far from here.

All day long he dreams of hair
He wants to be José Eber
Own his own salon and maybe more
far away from Bubba’s Inconvenience Store.

We hear the diesel engine rumbling, pulling up in front
is the biggest flat-bed tow truck I’ve ever seen
The driver does his magic, now my tiny car
looks like a Tonka toy perched atop that big machine.

Soon I’m on my way back home
to do some dreaming of my own
holding to my heart forever more
the dreams that pass through Bubba’s Inconvenience Store.

Sometimes God just slows you down
tucks you in some tiny town
frees your flights of fantasy to soar
on wings you buy at Bubba’s Inconvenience Store.