It was one of those great July mornings when it’s cool in Omaha, Nebraska, the humidity low and all four Burned Out Old Broads at Table 12 felt energized and eager to do something - - anything. The anything – a short walk to Panera’s, just around the corner, down the street.
“A Bear Claw calls to me,” Robinson Leary said, hoisting her computer bag onto her shoulder.
“Cheese Danish,” Hadley Joy Morris-Whitfield said.
“I’m in for one of those little eggey things,” Mary Rose McGill, added.
“Orange scone,” Marge Aaron said, retrieving her red cane from the corner of the dining room, where they had already started their day with hot, steaming coffee.
They had only walked a few feet past the entrance to Meadow Lakes Retirement Community when they heard feet pounding behind them.
They turned.
A young man in high top Nikes, black jeans and a black muscle shirt ran past Mary Rose and grabbed Hadley’s purse from her arm and pushed her to the ground.
“Ow!” she yelled, landing hard on her rear.
Without thinking, Robbie stuck out her Sketcher-clad right foot and tripped the kid.
‘Ow!” he yelled as he fell face down on the sidewalk.
“Marge!” Robbie yelled, banging him over the head with her computer, making the metal case jar it’s Creighton University logo. “Taser this dude!”
“Ow!” he said again. A trickle of blood came out of his nose where it had bounced against the sidewalk from the blow from Robbie’s computer. She hit him again.
Marge lifted her red cane and pressed the Taser button, and nothing happened.
“Battery’s low,” Marge mumbled.
Mary Rose opened her purse and began searching for her metal-handled hairbrush. She found a small pack of tissues and a package of gum.
Robbie smashed the kid’s bald head again.
Mary Rose found her make-up case.
Hadley, who had finally gotten to her feet, hurried to the kid, grabbed her purse from beside him and smashed him over the head, while Robbie hit him between the shoulders again with her computer,
Mary Rose cane up with her wallet and three loose quarters.
Marge Aaron pushed another button on her cane and the whole area was surrounded with a smoke screen.
“Marge!” Robbie yelled, “That isn’t helpful!’
“Missed the knife button,” Marge said.
The victim on the ground whimpered.
Mary Rose found her credit card case and her car keys.
“Listen you bitches, let me up!” the kid yell.
“He called us bitches,” Robbie yelled back and both she and Hadley kicked him in the ribs.
“Ow!” he yelled again.
“Limed vocabulary,” Marge observed. “I didn’t like him calling sweet old ladies bitches.” And she hobbled in front of him and bopped his bald head a good one with the handle of her cane. “If you say, ‘Ow’ again, I’ll bop you a second time.”
Mary Rose found two theater tickets and at last, her hairbrush.
“I’m not missing this,” she said, and she moved toward him and began to beat him in the butt with her hairbrush.
The kid did his best to crawl away.
Marge hit him on the head one more time. “We shouldn’t have all the fun,” she said, taking her phone out of her jeans pocket. “Call Wiley Vondra,” she said into it.
Wiley answered on the first ring.
“Release the Kraken!” Marge yelled into the phone.
In just seconds the door to Wiley and Mary Rose’s patio apartment opened and Geoffrey the oversized mastiff limped out as fast as he could and headed to the girls.
The young robber had given up and lay quietly with his hands over the back of his head. Marge stood with her cane poised, Hadley held her purse in the air and Robbie had her computer ready, while Mary Rose was making up lost time by hitting the rear end before her as hard as she could with her hairbrush.
There was no one to knock down as usual, Geoffrey observed, sniffing at the prone young man’s closed eyes.
“Oh drat,” Mary Rose said, raising up and looking at Geoffrey, who was looking back at her with big, questioning eyes. “Just SIT. Geoffrey!”
Geoffrey broke into a big doggy grin, turned, farted once, and did an Olympic class SIT square on the purse-snatcher’s back.
They could hear the siren from about a block away.
“I think I may have cracked my computer,” Robbie said.
“I think I’ll need a big sandwich now at Panera’s,” Hadley said.
“I’m going to need new batteries,” Marge groaned.
“I need to clean out my purse,” Mary Rose added as the police car pulled up to the curb.
Joy Stories
A Little Girl on the Curb
I quit driving the day I saw the little girl standing on the curb. We were driving in from Base Lake, our home when we were RVing.
There she was. Little blue coat Little yellow hat.
I thought how we don’t dress little girls cute like that anymore.
Little blue coat. Little yellow hat.
We got closer to her.
“I hope she doesn’t run out in front of us!” I thought.
Then, as we got closer,
She turned into a fire hydrant.
I didn’t want a fire hydrant to turn into a little girl and run in front of me.
That was the day I stopped driving.
It is a wise person who knows when to do that.
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Check to Joy Brown at
8141 farnam, #322, Omaha NE 68114
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