by Roger White
Come and
listen to a story ’bout a man named Rog,
For their winter getaway got the car out the garage,
Packed the family up and drove to Santa Fe,
But here’s some weird stuff that happened on the way.
’Bout five in the morning just outside Fredericksburg,
With temperature readings like an Arctic iceberg,
Steering got squirrelly and a tire went POP,
Two hundred bucks later we leave the tire shop.
On I-10 past Sonora I decide to take a snooze,
Wifey’s at the wheel, what have I got to lose?
I wake and we’re smack in the middle of nowhere,
Fifty miles from a town with no gas to spare.
Fort Stockton’s now roughly thirty miles away,
With the “Empty” light on we both begin to pray,
Then out of nowhere an Exxon comes in sight,
We laugh and we cry and soon forget our plight.
Up 285 into old New Mexico,
Night begins to fall and the wind begins to blow,
There in the darkened road with no time to stop,
We almost run over a New Mexico cop.
Fuzz, that is. Black uniform. Gun and all.
Well, the next thing ya know we’re into Santa Fe,
Wife and I relax while the girls go out to play,
We realize we’re now about a thousand in the hole,
For Christmas, we figure, we’ll give the girls coal.
Anthracite, that is. Black fuel. Fossilized carbon.
Heading back to Texas we drive all day and night,
With fast food in our bellies the car sure smells a might,
We all begin to wonder why this far we did roam,
Next year we figure it’s best to just stay home.
Roger White is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas, with his lovely wife, two precocious daughters, a very fat dachshund, and a self-absorbed cat. For further adventures, visit oldspouse.wordpress.com.
