BY ROBIN DORF
In a town of visually lackluster teenage boys, Stan van Flan discovered an unusual talent buried deep within his quintessential being. Since the tender age of eight, Stan had always wondered what caused him to be an unusually good thumb wrestler and a whimsical rock climber with all the right moves.
But after a session with his physical therapist for an injury sustained while pulling a “Hallowing Hawk”, a common move for the world’s best thumb wrestlers, the young “Stan van Hand” realized what had caused him to proclaim glory in this unusual sport. His physical therapist, Judas Thiamin, told him what seemed to be an inevitable truth; Stan was double-jointed.
At first reaction Stan responded “No way! I always wondered why I was such a good thumb wrestler. The idea that my thumb was made of gold never really appealed to me. I have been given the gift of gab, the cruisin’ for a bruisin’, and the stickin’ for a lickin’! I am double jointed!” he proclaimed as if he were Moses acting as if he were just being handed the Ten Commandments.
Walking into school the next day was an unworldly scene. He casually strolled in wearing a “Double Jointed Demon” shirt and a glass casement around his thumb. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to it” he later said.
With all the confidence in the world, he meandered coolly to the girl he had had dreams about, June Bungabee. He had often wondered what it would be like to be in the same room as her, or to touch something that she had once touched, or even to have her mention the name Stan, even if it was not in reference to him. But this was a different day.
Van Flan proceeded to walk up to Bungabee with an unnerving coolness about his aura. The first words out of his mouth were “Hey babe” and Bungabee immediately thought that she was transported back into a bad 80’s movie. “So June, I was wondering. You ever been with a guy who can touch his thumb to his wrist? Or been with someone who learned the properties of 90° angles with their own thumb?”
Bungabee, however, barely noticed the boy talking to her and heedlessly walked away from the situation. It was found out later in the week that Bungabee had been spotted canoodling with her triple-jointed boyfriend nicknamed “Physiology Defyer”.
