On the morning of March 30, 2006, Stanley Talkus Well was sitting in his two bedroom apartment, on the edge of New York City as the winter rolled around; thinking about what he was going to do with his five day weekend when his friend Frankie busted through the door.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Frankie asked.

“Oh nothing, I was just waiting for my new snowboard to arrive!” Stanley said excitedly.

“Whoa there, no need to that excited, but what brand is it?” Frankie asked as if he were interested in ‘borrowing’ it sometime.


“I have no idea,” he replied.

“How could you not know? Didn’t you but it?” he asked because he was obviously perplexed.

“Nah, I just won it in a contest,” said “Stan the Man’, as his friends call him.

“So when is your sister coming in from town?”

“Way to switch subjects, what do you care anyways?”

“I was just wondering, by the way, her name’s Abigail, right?” Frankie questioned.
“Yes, it is and I have no idea when she is coming,” Stan said and then murmured something under his breath while shifting an uneven picture frame on the wall.
“What did you just say?!”

“I said that I don’t know when she was coming,” Stanley answered a little bit agitated.

“You don’t have to be so defensive.”

“I said--,” and Stanley murmured out another few words under his breath while ducking his head.

“Did you just say that you don’t even like her?”

“No, that’s not what I said!” Stan hollered becoming slightly offended because he knew that it was partially true. He didn’t like his sister that much, but that didn’t change the fact that he was related to her and would always love her, as the family member that she was.

“It’s alright, chill. Sorry if I said anything to ‘upset’ you,” Frankie said apologetically.

“No, it’s cool, it’s not what you said,” Stanley said trying to take back what he had told Frankie.

“Look, I’ll call you tomorrow; maybe we can snowboard with the new one you’re getting in the mail or something,” Frankie said, while Stanley nodded in acceptance.

“Okay, sounds like a plan. I’ll see you then. Bye,” Stanley said walking with Frankie to his car that was conveniently parked in his driveway.



Frankie left Stan’s apartment and Stanley sat in his apartment, just like before, only this time, he had one more thing on his mind, like waiting for his sister and the new board he was about to get, only now, he wasn’t as excited as before. Stanley sat in his chair and stared at the wall when there was a sudden knock at the door. He really didn’t think anything of it. He assumed it would be Frankie. Maybe he forgot something, or maybe he couldn’t go home because of whatever reason he had to not stay with his family.

As he got up to answer the door, he opened it hesitantly and saw no one that he was expecting at this particular moment; it was the post man. The mail man handed him a letter and walked away. Stan thanked him and closed the door behind him, went into the living room and ripped the envelope open. It was a letter from Abigail. Stanley read it and came to the bottom of the letter before he realized that she actually wouldn’t be attending for the week, or the weekend, not even for a day or two. Stanley felt a mix of emotions, scared, excited, and relieved, all at the same time. He felt scared because he thought that something could have happened to her, excited because he sort of dreaded her coming, and lastly, relieved that he didn’t have to deal with all of her guy drama while she would be staying with him.

Nevertheless, Stanley was still anticipating the arrival of something that meant more to him, even more than his sister coming in from town to spend time with him and see his new house, the new snowboard that would be coming in the mail all the way from California. He sat back down in the same spot he was before the mailman had knocked on the door. Before he started psyching himself up for the new board, his phone rang.


Luckily for Stan, he had caller id, so he knew who was calling before he picked up the phone. He looked down and saw his sister’s name flashing across the telephone’s screen. Stanley reluctantly picked up the phone and Abigail began talking immediately.

“Look, I know you’re probably disappointed and mad and we are supposed to spend all this weekend hanging out together, but something came up and I know you wouldn’t understand and that’s why I don’t want to make any of my worries you problems….,” Abigail was almost out of breath by the time she jumbled out that last slur of words.


“Whoa whoa whoa, slow down,” Stan told his sister trying to slow her speaking down because he could barely understand what she had just said.

“First of all, you should be mad, you have every right to be, but…,” Abigail said as if she didn’t expect anything better of Stan.

“First of all, you already made it my business by writing me a letter and then calling me on top of that, so you might as well just tell me what guy broke up with you and what happened and what you said to him and what open-ended promise he made to you, but that you still love him anyways,” Stan said as if he had the answers to everything.

“I don’t like him anymore. I don’t want to see him ever again and I definitely don’t ever want him to show up at my house or call me again, so you can just forget that I ever said that I loved him,” Abigail said slightly offended.

“Oh, like all the other guys, right? Like, ugh what was his name?”
“No! and his name was Nick by the way if you even care about who I choose to like or date or spend time with because I care about them,” Abigail said getting more defensive than she had been throughout their entire conversation.

That’s great, and this being your what, 79th guy? Yeah I could practically care less,” Stanley said hanging up the phone before his sister could stammer out any more half thought through, roughly put together excuses for being the person that she is, letting guys trample all over her and take advantage of the great person that she is. Stanley wasn’t mad at mad at his sister, but at the person she had let herself become, actually believing what these guys had told her. Then came how much he hated the people that had broke her heart which probably made him twice as mad as the first reason, but the only thing that made him even more then furious was that his new snowboard still hadn’t come in the mail yet. He ran to the window when he heard something go flying past his apartment. Stanley looked out the window and saw a huge red truck backing up at an extremely high speed.

“Whoa! Look at that truck!” Stanley exclaimed to himself, seeing as how he was the only person in his apartment. After all that excitement over the truck’s speed, Stan could barely contain himself enough to realize that the name on the side of the truck was Speedy Delivery. Stanley sat back down and then jumped right back up and flew to the door. He ran outside, and greeted the stocky, bald man that stepped out of the red, bus-like figure. That bald man bared the package that Stanley longed for. Stan thanked the man and then ran inside and ripped open the seemingly small package. Stanley had the























utter look of shock on his face when he tore away the bubble wrap to reveal a broken snowboard. The board that he had been waiting for all day was now in his hands, but it was definitely not in the condition that he had wished for. Although he had kept his hopes up all day, he wasn’t as disappointed as his friends expected; in fact Stanley was ready to ride the board regardless of its condition.

Waking up at six o’clock in the morning, Stan could feel the effects of staying up too late, but he was destined to hit the slopes and catch up with all of his friends. Stan got out of bed and brushed his teeth, he put some chap stick, and a few layers of clothing to keep warm before adding the finishing touch, a spandex suit which would give the advantage of being aerodynamic on the snow hills.

Stanley caught up with all of his buddies at the local snowboarding shop that was conveniently located at the foot of the hill where they would be snowboarding later that day.


“Nice spandex man,” a bystander blurted out as he was walking by.

“Hey thanks! I got them at this store, it’s actually right down the street here,” Stanley said willfully, as if he was about to give the man directions to this store. The man seemed very interested as he stopped to listen to what Stan had to say.

“Oh yeah, I might have to look into that,” he said, shaking Stan’s hand after Stan gave him the directions to the store.

“See, see what I told you, everybody wears them,” Stanley said as his friends started laughing and Stanley picked up his broken snowboard and followed with his pals
over to the ski lift. Stan got ready, leaped off of the bench, and to everyone’s amazement, actually started snowboarding with his broken board and all.
At the end of Stanley’s second most eventful day of the weekend, he went home to the surprise of his sister standing on his front porch, waiting for him to come home so she wouldn’t have to wait outside any longer.

“Hey! What are you doing here?!”

“I’m sorry about the note and the phone call, I should have known better. I know you don’t want to listen to all of my troubles and that’s why I didn’t want to come out here, but I realize that you wanted to help me and really care about me, so I wanted to apologize, in person,” Abigail told Stanley with a sincere smile on her face.

“I appreciate that,” Stan said accepting what Abigail just said to him. Abigail decided to stay at Stan’s house and bond with him for a few days before he had to go back to work, Abigail found a new boyfriend, and a week later Stanley got a brand new snowboard from the company because they actually made a mistake on the shipping address. Apparently, his friend that lives down the street from him ordered a few parts for an old snowboard of his and just found out that Stanley got them in the mail a couple of weeks prior, this was just another weekend of Stanley Talkus Well.


Michelle Levy