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The Curse of Flat Stanley
There it was. Sitting on the counter with the rest of the mail – a letter of non-descript detail, innocuous enough if it hadn’t been for the loose unmeasured scrawl indicating that it had been sent by someone well below “fine motor skill age.” The return address indicated it was from one of my sister’s four children in Greenville S.C. I glanced at the wife, “you don’t suppose it could be . . .”
She cut me off in mid-sentence, “No, she wouldn’t do that to us . . .” came the half hoping, somewhat fearful, sarcastic response.
But the die had already been cast. There was no more changing what awaited us in that envelope than there was the date on the calendar or the temperature outside and we both knew it. But we didn’t dare say it – at least until we had slit the tattered, pencil smeared envelope open . . .
“Oh No, IT’S FLAT STANLEY!” we lamented in unison.
Peeking out from beneath the corner of the envelope was the dreaded little urchin himself – grinning as though he was as happy to see you as you weren’t to see him. (A reality that just isn’t possible for anyone being given a Flat Stanley for the 27th time.)
For those of you unfamiliar with Flat Stanley, let me bring you quickly up to speed: The “Flat Stanley Project,” is one in which young children are required to read the book, “Flat Stanley” and are asked to make their own paper Flat Stanley character to be carted about with them. They are then required to keep a journal for a few days, documenting the places and activities in which Flat Stanley is involved. Finally – and this is the scurrilous part - the Flat Stanley and journal are mailed to others who are asked to treat the figure as a visiting guest, adding to his journal, and then returning them both after a period of time.
Sounds fun doesn’t it? Of course it does, if you’re the teacher that has assigned said project and all you ever have to do is watch your happy little charges march up to the front of the room and proudly describe where their little Stanleys have been. But to the majority of those who have become multiple Flat Stanley recipients, Stanley often winds up being what many uninvited guests turn out to be – an unanticipated burden that is scorned like a mongrel hound on the doorstep of the American Kennel Club.
In case you’re not convinced that the Flat Stanley scourge has taken over America, you will be amazed to learn that the night after our most recent Stanley arrived on our doorstep, I met a young couple (The Brian Bollingers of Roanoke County) on top of Mill Mountain that were photographing their five (yes, five) young boys with none other than a . . . “Flat Sheila!” (Equality in our valley simply knows no bounds.) Maybe she was the girl they had always hoped for, but somehow I doubted it.
Unfortunately, our Stanley didn’t fare as well as the Bollinger’s Sheila. As usual we had opened the mail on the bar that seperates our kitchen and den – a location that at 5:00 PM on any given day is ground zero for an explosion of paper, magazines, mail and homework that rivals the daily output of Westvaco. Stanley was soon lost in the proverbial shuffle and the only adventure he was having at our home on Stanley Avenue (ironically enough) was laying prostrate (as is his nature) beneath next months ballet and basketball schedules.
A couple of weeks later I received an email from my dear sister Anne. “Did you receive a Flat Stanley in the mail? We were wondering when we could expect him back.”
I responded that we had and that I would put an APB out on him as soon as possible. I made an announcement that night at dinner and after a few days of being on the look-out we discovered him in the den beneath some violin sheet music. It was truly a miracle that Stanley wasn’t already moldering away at the bottom of the regional landfill – flatter than ever. But now that we had found him we needed to begin the task of concocting some “adventure” so that Stanley could be expressed mailed back the next day.
(It is extremely likely that the Flat Stanley project is nothing more than a conspiracy concocted by Federal Express. Imagine how many millions must nightly wing their way back and forth across the country to impatient Aunts and Uncles . . . As Woodward and Bernstein would say, “just follow the money.”)
The wife was honest enough I suppose – she recounted son’s Rob’s schedule during the previous week, as in “this is what he WOULD have been doing had he actually been in his back pack,” which she insists he was at least part of the time. But I rather have my doubts. My guess is that 85% of all Flat Stanley adventures are absolute fabrications created in haste.
Now many of you are no doubt saying, “what a cad – he should be glad his sister and others would think of him and send him this cute little paper figure to be kept up with and reported on . . . I mean how hard can it be?”
Well, its not – really. But given the 70,000 myriad daily details involved in coordinating the schedules of six people in the modern world, being given one more is, well . . . one more.
But now that I slow down to think about it, maybe old Stanley isn’t such a burden after all – at the very least he facilitated communication with my sister who now lives so far away. And how many times do my nephews or nieces actually call upon dear old Uncle Stu for anything?
The fact is I should be honored – supremely honored – and so I am, er, we are . . . I think.
And maybe it’s a timely reminder – unwanted “presents” (and we all receive them at some point) should be viewed for what they are – cherished items in the eye of the sender and expressions of thoughtfulness that are meant as a minimum to bring joy or fun or and nothing less than the knowledge that we are loved. And at the end of the day, relative to gift giving and receiving, perhaps we can never ask for more than that.
But no more Flat Stanleys this month, thank you - Fat Santa’s on the way . . .
- Stuart