Free No Early Birds: A Short Story by Mackey Chandler Page A

make us all out to be. The only reason Anna and Faye drive doing sales is Faye has a minivan and Anna has an ancient Crown Victoria with a trunk that can swallow a chest of drawers or a bicycle for one of our grand kids and still close the lid.
                  The reason I mention that is because I was looking down at the phone I'd picked up to see if I could find out who to return it to. It seemed more like an old PDA than a real phone. I didn't see any of the expected icons to let you dial or call up apps. I didn't feel like I had to watch Anna's driving. I trust her. Not like some folks I ride with where I keep a sharp lookout.
                  It wasn't a old Palm, I found examining it closely. I remembered those, but it was nice looking little computer, whatever brand it was. I couldn't see a logo, maybe if I took the soft case off there would be one. It opened to a screen that displayed the current date and time. Below it was an identical box with blank forms for a different date and time. It seemed like an awkward way to open a calendar or scheduler. There was a tree icon that produced a big tree of branching categories of collectibles. It was rather extensive having listings for coins, clothing, porcelain, glass, furniture, books, ephemeral, and even such modern things as computers and big ticket items like cars, but it expanded the font when you ran the cursor over it so you could read the detail easily.
                  Apparently it carried all that data in memory instead of accessing it by wireless. It always just amazes me how they keep cramming more and more memory in these things. If you go back in six months to get another phone the sales people just sneer at your old one. There was nothing that looked like an address book, so I looked in the calendar to see if the lady had any appointments for tomorrow that would let me return the thing to her. I punched the next day's date in, April 10, leaving the time blank and thumbed enter.
                  Two things happened. The sun came out, which was peculiar because it was a solid gray overcast, and at the same instant Anna jammed hard on the brakes to stop at the red light, saying a nasty word. That just isn't like her at all.
                  "Did you see that Violet Jeanne?" Anna asked me, because I was in the front seat with her. "The light went from green straight to red. That thing is busted for sure. We need to report that to someone," she insisted, all indignant.
                  "No, I was looking down playing with this uh, phone or whatever. It doesn't seem to have any way to connect to anything. And when I put a date in it doesn't display any appointments. It just looks like a way to reset the clock." That was strange to leave up on the screen all the time. She was so shook up at the light she didn't seem to have noticed the odd way the sky cleared up. It was only another block to the Waffle House. I was glad because the light had left Anna rattled.
                  The window booth we like was open which was nice, the Waffle House is usually crowded on a Saturday and we often can't sit there. Faye went to the rest room and Edna went outside to buy a Tribune from the box.
    .              "This is weird," Edna said when she came back, tossing the paper on the table, "They have the Sunday paper in the box already on Saturday morning."
                  I'll always remember that was the instant I understood. But I didn't speak up right away trying to get my words together so I didn't sound like a crazy lady. Anna helped me along a bit, looking out the window and across the street.
                  "That's the Episcopal church across the street isn't it? Not the Adventists?"
    She put the emphasis wrongly on the second syllable instead of the first, but I decided now was not the time to get bogged down in details. People can sulk on it the rest of