The Beginning of Maverick

Third grade classrooms around the country let kids cut a basic stick figure out of construction paper and decorate it with stickers and buttons applied with obscene amounts of glue. They call it Flat Stanley. And through distant relatives and the business trips of their fathers, kids try and gather pictures of said piece of paper around the world. For me, Maverick is just a glorified version of the Flat Stanley I never had.

Maverick came to me from a late night grocery run sometime during my junior year of high school. At some point, I may have toyed with the idea of making my own sock monkey but remembering I am in almost no way domestic, it seemed easy to dole out the five dollars and have instant sock monkey gratification. I was not alone in this. My best friend Laura bought one too and we embarked on our own version of the Flat Stanley contest. Instead of being in competition with a classroom of seven year olds, it was me versus Laura (a reoccurring theme in my life)- or rather Maverick (absolutely no relation to McCain or any member of the Grand Old Party) versus Leonardo (aka Lenny). However, the rules of our game were different- you couldn’t simply send the monkey away for other people to photograph, you had to be there too.

Poor Lenny never made it far. Once Laura remembered she is absolutely incapable of photographing any of her travels, Lenny was shoved into a lovely silver ski jacket (complete with fur hood) that he borrowed from Barbie and deposited on Laura's bed to a life of fending off her vicious cats. Maverick’s fate was a bit different. He didn’t get the snow attire like Lenny or a large dose of Elmer’s glue like many Stanleys but a few poorly applied iron-on patches and buttons. And unlike many of his construction paper foes, he has yet to ride camels across the Sahara or ring the closing bell of the stock exchange. We’re working on it though.

But we can't take on the whole world at once, so Maverick and I are conquering Louisville first. Here we go.