Ninja Appreciation Week

I'm here now in large part due to the generosity of Scillius Maximus. He took pity on my computerless state and loaned me an old laptop. This means, of course, that I've got to promote him yet again, and I thought long and hard about this. The name had to stick with that Latin vibe. It had to fully communicate my gratitude for the computer loan and for setting up an account for me under the name "Writing Goddess." It had to rock the casbah. So, without further ado, I hereby promote Scillius Maximus to:

Scillius Maximus the Great (fo shizzle)

It's a new dialect. I call it Ebonicus.

And it occurs to me that I never ran Ninja Appreciation Week here at The Wonder That Is My Blog. Scillius Maximus the Great (fo shizzle) is a ninja. Slayer is one. My personal trainer is one. Tiny T is one. I'm surrounded by ninjas. Really, you could be surrounded by them right now and not even know it. I'm not trying to make you paranoid, just making a comment based on personal experience.

So it's time to show the ninjas in your life how much you care, and since I've got a lot of ninja-related experience, I thought I'd give you a few tips.

Do a good deed for a ninja this week. Of course, that will necessitate finding the ninjas first. Dress all in black and go outside. Yell "Free shuriken to the first fifty ninja!" or "Quick! Come look! The Teletubbies are committing seppuku!" (Seppuku is that whole ritual disemboweling of one's self with a sword thing.) When the ninjas show up, stick tracking beacons on them. Then run very fast, because ninjas don't like to be tricked, even if it is with the intent of doing them a good deed later. If you can turn invisible or morph into a cloud of gnats or something, that would be a good idea. If not, paint yourself green and pretend to be a hedge.

And then, once the ninjas have given up on trying to find you and practice their ginsu skills on you, put on your Secret Ninja cap. The Secret Ninja is kinda like Secret Santa, but thinner, better dressed, and more likely to gift pointy objects. Help little ninja grannies across the street. Paint their houses black in the middle of the night. Do not under any circumstances mow their lawns, because you're messing with their ground cover. Ninjas love crawling around belly first in tall grass.

That's a little known fact about ninjas, but I can tell you for certain that it's true.

Get your friendly neighborhood ninja a gift. Ninjas like prizes. They particularly enjoy things that are black, things that are pointy, and lawn flamingos. So if you can find a black, razor-tipped lawn flamingo, you're good.

Ninjas pride themselves on being well rounded. They really appreciate art, especially if it can also be used as a deadly object. So get out your crayons and draw them a picture on heavy waxed paper. They can flick it at people and inflict major paper cuts, or roll it up and use it to whack people over the head or something. If the picture involves blood, guts, or pointy objects, you'll get extra Ninja Appreciation Points, and you can redeem them for fabulous prizes. I'll tell you more about the Ninja Appreciation Points Program later on this week.

Your homework for tonight is to think about what you can do for your local ninjas. It's Ninja Appreciation Week! Let's party!