A Tiny Buc-ee's

An unauthorized tiny Buc-ee's recently popped up briefly in the West Texas desert near Marathon.  Texas Monthly reports that the tiny Buc-ee's was taken down swiftly -- just two days after it reported the marvelous site.  Some things are too beautiful to live.

This seems kind of silly since Buc-ee's is known for not only living a Texas-sized life but for also holding world records for the largest convenience store and longest car wash.  So, it's a bit ironic for someone to vie for the tiniest Buc-ee's.  However, there's a little (pun intended) context that helps make sense of this silliness.

West Texas has hosted two other well known mini-stores.  One of them was a Prada shop while the other was a Target.  Now, it's super important to note that none of the brands were associated with these mini-shops.  Artists were behind them.  Further, they didn't create art to celebrate these storied brands; they created these pieces of art to protest the brands for promoting needless luxury, excess, and/or naked consumerism.

In the case of tiny Buc-ee's, the has artist has remained anonymous.  Part of the reason is for this anonymity is that Buc-ee's corporate is very protective of its brand and image.  Here's a good time to remind all y'all that Texas Snax is NOT part of, sponsored, affiliated, nor endorsed by Buc-ee's.  We're simply super fans who resell its goods, a practice with strong precedence of legality.  However, the legal lines surrounding parody are not nearly as clear.  

Buc-ee's general counsel Jeff Nadalo told Texas Monthly -- without commenting on potential legal action -- that "[w]hile we have not visited the site, we do wonder whether they are keeping up with Buc-ee's meticulous 24×7 bathroom-cleaning standards."

So, why did this artist create a tiny Buc-ee's in the spirit of the West Texas tiny Prada and Target?  They told Texas Monthly's Taylor Prewitt that they meant it as "a light-hearted jab at the self-important Prada store crowd and another light-hearted jab at Walmart/gas station hybrids and America's propensity for ever-expanding excess."

We cannot deduce for sure if this means that they also are or aren't protesting the fact that there are no West Texas Buc-ee's while the chain is expanding outside of Texas to other parts of the South and even to near the Colorado side of its border with Wyoming.  However, other people -- like Instagram user lynley_kate -- gleefully celebrated that at least Buc-ee's in some form had finally arrived in West Texas.  Here's hoping.  There were several requests for West Texas when we asked: Where Should Buc-ee's Go Next?

This tiny bit of Buc-ee's history certainly didn't last long, but we're sure that its influence will linger for much longer.

As all y'all know, for those of y'all who aren't near a Buc-ee's (pre-travel center sized, travel center behemoths, or tiny) or H-E-B by the way, we're happy to ship what is well suited for shipping directly to y'all's doorsteps.  Heck.  For the right price if y'all just have to get something from a Texas Target or -- why not -- Prada, we just might use our right to resell such items upon request, too.