In this blog: The Purse Snatcher
Notes from Joy
BOOB Girl Talk for your groups
The BOOB Girl Series
The Purse Snatcher
“She’s always the last one out,” Robinson Leary smiled and looked at her phone to check the time.
They were waiting just outside the door of Meadow Lakes Retirement Community for Mary Rose McGill. It was an unusually warm February day in Omaha. and they were anxious to limp around the block and enjoy the outside.
Robbie was dressed in her usual Creighton Blue Jays sweatshirts and jeans. Marge Aaron was wearing a loose-fitting jogging suit from Target, complete with white stripe down the legs and Hadley Joy Morris Whitfield was in a beige pant suit costing exactly twelve times the cost of Marge’s outfit. They all wore white walking shoes that closed with Velcro and not laces.
Mary Rose McGill bustled out the door wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. The shirt was blue and the letters on it spelled, “Sweet Old Lady? More like a battle tested warrior queen.” Wiley Vondra had given Mary Rose the shirt. She loved it. She had thrown the Meadow Lakes Traveling Cape over her shoulders.
“I borrowed it from Peggy,” she explained, catching her breath. “It was her turn to wear the cape and she didn’t want to take a walk, but she wanted the cape to have the experience.
The ladies of the retirement community were wearing the cape as a symbol of the sisterhood they felt living together. Next month they would have a Scottish tea, complete with bagpiper to celebrate the wearing of the attractive, light-weight plaid cape.
Mary Rose’s purse was hung over her shoulder. and she was carrying a large, unwieldy Bible.
They looked at it and then at her.
“So we’re going to the new coffee shop around the corner,” she said. “After we watched The Power of the Dog movie I wanted to read about the reference in the Psalm to that title.
“I could have looked it up on my computer,” Robbie said, lifting her computer case up from where it hung on her shoulder.
“Not the same,” Mary Rose said decisively. She shifted the big Bible to the other arm. It was a reference Bible and obviously heavy.
Marge Aaron shrugged and took a step, using her red cane.
Hadley had her Kindle tablet with her, nestled in the crook of her arm.
They were headed for a new coffee shop just around the corner. It would be a perfect walk. The sun was bright. They all wore dark glasses.
Robbie and Hadley led the way, Marge was right behind them, and Mary Rose, balancing Bible and purse was hurrying to bring up the rear, even though they walked slowly.
Mary Rose looked ahead at them. “SHIT” she yelled. They knew the meaning and they straightened up. Shoulders back. Head high, I’s straight ahead. Tummy tucked in. Their code word for good posture. The good posture lasted for at least twenty feet.
All of them heard the sound of running behind them. Thinking it was someone out for a jog on a nice day, they moved to the right of the sidewalk.
It wasn’t until Mary Rose yelled, “HEY!” that they turned.
A young man, wearing a dirty white t-shirt, jeans and Nikes, his arms covered in tattoos, had grabbed Mary Rose’s purse, torn it from her arm, and was bent over, head lowered, to dash around them.
Robbie looked at him for a second, stuck out one foot, and tripped him. He fell with a thud. Marge Aaron took two steps toward him, aimed her cane, and pushed the taser button.
Nothing.
“Drat! No battery!” She raised the cane and slammed it over his head.
“Ow!” He was struggling to get up.
Hadley lifted her tablet over her head to hit him with it, thought better of it, and gave him a firm, accurate kick in the jaw.
A tooth flew into the air.
“Good one,” Marge commented, and she hit him over the head again with her cane.
He wasn’t through. He got to his knees just as Robbie lifted her computer above her head just as Hadley had lifted her tablet.
“Nope,” she said, “too new and too valuable.” She did two small jumps, landed on his outspread hands and crushed his fingers.
“Hands were all spread out,” she said, grinning at Marge.
Marge gave her a thumbs up and hit him for a third time with her cane.
“My turn!” Mary Rose yelled, and she hit him as hard as she could over the head with the heavy Bible.”
“Didn’t worry about the cost of the Bible.” Robbie said to Hadley.
“A bonk with a Bible is valuable in and of itself,” Hadley said.
The young man bent over and curled up in a ball just a Mary Rose swung one leg back to deliver her deadly groin kick. Because of his quick movement, Mary Rose missed the groin kick, smashed her foot into his face and broke his nose. Blood spurted over the sidewalk and the voice from behind them was loud and clear.
“Geoffrey! Play!”
Alphonso Greatwood zoomed through the Meadow Lakes gate in his scooter. Running ahead of him at full power-limp was Geoffrey, their oversized mastiff. Geoffrey knew the word. He took one look at the young man on the sidewalk, his nose to one side of his face, gave a loud bark and a high jump and did an Olympic SIT on the middle of the man’s back.
The kid groaned.
“I’ll stay here until the police come” Alphonso said.
Mary Rose looked at her shoe. “Dang it. Blood on my shoe. I’ll have to throw them in the laundry and they’re brand new.”
Marge walked to Alphonso and planted a wet one on his bald head. “Got to charge my batteries,” she said, holding up her cane.
“I’ m glad we didn’t break the tablet and computer,” Robbie said to Hadley.
“Not worth it,” Hadley replied.
As they turned the corner, they could see two things: the trendy new coffee shop and a police cruiser turning the corner toward a boy, a dog, and an old man in a scooter.
Alphonso looked thoughtful as the cruiser came to a stop. “What old lady doesn’t want to beat the crap out of a bad guy?” he asked himself.
This blog’s offer: All twelve novels Plus a free audio book of BOOB I - $120.
Buy ahead for any occasion. Give them to 12 different friends or family members and let them pass them around.
If your books are getting dog-eared and old and need replacing.
If you have loaned them out and experience “holy theft,” now is the time to replace.
If you want to make a special gift to a nursing home.
If your library needs a BOOB Girl boost.
Or if someone is grieving and you need a “just because” gift.
Here’s your best chance of the year.
Our guarantee: if you don’t laugh out loud, you get your money back.
A note from Joy
The Gun Found at Marks (Book XI)
It was always, Monday at Marks. Every Monday, my late husband, Marv and I ate at Marks Bistro just a few blocks from our beautiful little English Tudor house. Marks was in an old house in Dundee and in nearly all the BOOB Girl books, the girls have lunch at Marks. It was great. It was home. And when the landscaper pulled up an old crabapple tree and found the roots wrapped around a gun buried in a bucket of concrete, we knew there was a story there.
When the girls touched the gun. It became a time portal as in Harry Potter, and they went back in history to find who used the gun and buried the evidence.
I called Mark to borrow the gun when I gave a talk to my PEO Chapter called, The Gun Found at Harks, and he said, “You’re the only one who ever uses the gun, you might as well keep it.” What a gift!!
I told Diane, my friend and librarian here at the Arboretum, “I won’t shoot anybody with it.”
She had a perfect reply: “Only if they deserve it.”
The Bistro is closed now, but if you are in the Omaha area, Mark now has
a terrific market on the ground floor of the old restaurant. Marks Pantry and Bottle Shop is worth a visit – great wines and gourmet foods.
And to you, Mark – thank you. And thanks for the memories, of Monday nights at Marks, talking politics and making sparks…I thank you, SO MUCH!
Now that we are opening up some, I will be available for speaking. At least I HOPE we’ll be opening up some! The BOOB Girls Talk will be shorter, 30-40 minutes, and will be available only within 150 miles of Omaha.
For information, email joy.johnson@msn.com or call at 403-639-2030,
This is a laugh out loud talk that includes how older women are beautiful and BOOB Girl Books will be waiting for you.
BOOB Girl BOOKS Here
Credit cards: website or 402-639-2939
Check to Joy Brown at
8141 Farnam, #322, Omaha NE 68114
Comments