Free No Early Birds: A Short Story by Mackey Chandler

 
                  One Saturday morning in April, we four widows were doing garage sales in Bradenton. Faye, Anna, Edna and I like to do the nice middle class neighborhoods. We lived in a much nicer section ourselves, down near Sarasota, but God's own truth is, rich people don't put anything out at sale until it's used up, worn out, and ready to throw away. Stuff less well to do people would be embarrassed to offer, though they'd drop it in the charity box without a qualm. We got stuck following two woman in a green SUV like happens sometimes. They always seemed to pull into the next sale just ahead of us. When we'd walk in they'd be walking out with treasures that could have been ours. Finally we skipped ahead of them by passing the next sale where they'd stopped. We should have skipped two or three ahead, because they caught up too quickly - practically running down the drive to join us at the next sale we reached.
                  The bigger woman, a real Amazon, and awfully young to be playing this game, considered a cast iron bank carefully. It was the sort of thing that would be valuable in an original, but I could see from ten feet away it was a reproduction. Without setting the bank down she pulled out a phone and consulted it to see if she wanted the purchase. To my surprise she kept the reproduction, even after checking it out, as well as several other marginal finds before paying for them all. Then she and her friend rushed to their car, I assumed to beat us to the next sale.
                  Edna was already back in the car, ready to go. She has a bit of arthritis and doesn't stand longer than she needs to. Anna Mae was the one who held us up by talking to the lady holding the sale about cross-stitch. She's mad about it using all kinds of fancy thread and making her own patterns. We couldn't say anything, what with it being her who was driving us that day. Faye would have just told her to get her butt in the car or she'd leave her there, had she been driving. Neither Edna or myself have the nerve to talk tough like Faye, though I wish sometimes I could.
                  The green SUV was pulling away when we left the sale, but there laying on the end of the drive was the ladies phone. Now I don't need to look in eBay or a collectors site to know if I want to buy something. I know my glass and toys, and rarely buy outside what I know. But I can understand why somebody uses something like a phone or tablet to look up prices if they are buying for business. It's only been a few years now the whole county has had free wireless. Before that it was too expensive and if you had to run home or someplace like a coffee shop to check out a big purchase it was gone by the time you got back. Now with free access you see a lot of people checking items out on their phone or hand-held or even going back to the car and looking items up on a laptop.
                  I snatched up the lady's little phone, thinking we'd see them down the street and return it, but we saw them leaving the end of the street left at the light. By the time we got to the intersection they were out of sight. They must have really moved fast. I even had Anna drive to the next block where there more sale signs when we didn't see them right away - which irritated Anna no end so that she made us go back to the street we hadn't finished, for fear we'd miss something.
                  About eleven Faye started talking about lunch, because she never eats breakfast so she's always hungry first. We'd struck out the last few stops and it was sprinkling a little so we were happy to stop early. No need to talk about where. It was a given we stopped at the Waffle House when doing sales.
                  Anna Mae is a good driver. All of us drive and do okay. Edna was a little slow and cautious, but none of us were the sort who drive through red lights or get lost like so many young folks try to