T'is the Season to be a Ninja!

There are few things I do right. There are even fewer things I do well. But when I have to go shopping and  its this time of year-shopping alone,  I'm like a ninja!

Yesterday, I was able to slide into the mall, access my predetermined target, and egress the zone, arriving back to my car and pulling out on the street in a total time of fourteen minutes! I was like a F-15 Strike Eagle, covertly arriving at a back, not well known parking lot, hitting the door and sliding inside. Sometimes, when I am walking, and truly in the zone, I am flying at low altitude, in and out of the racks of clothes, flying my mission well under the radar.

The ninja (yes, ninjas fly Strike Eagles-geez) slid passed the elderly couple as they approached the front door to the store, hitting one of the other doors while simultaneously, reaching into my pocket, finding some change-any change, and plopping into the red bucket operated by the only witness to my parking, the Salvation Army Bell Ringer. I bought his silence and his gratitude with whatever landed in the pot. He was now on my side.

I walked quickly, yet silently, my Asic-gels making me almost invisible to normal ears. Then, the first problem.

I had to pee.

Mentally, I had predetermined that was going to be an issue. Its always an issue. I'm fifty-three. It is just a precursor to my future in life.

I mentally suppressed it. Besides, the nearest restroom did not appear in my vision as I moved  like a panther through the men's section and the bushes just outside were, well, just outside.

That's what a ninja would do-use the bushes or mentally suppress it. I had a mission and I was going to complete it.

There is a fairly well known law of shopping for women. If you land close on the purchase, chances are, you will win. What I mean by that is, for example, if she wants jeans and you get her something close to what she wants, like in the same color spectrum, she'll be happy. Why? Because she gets to take it back and go shopping and get something she really wanted and it probably won't be jeans. You do it enough times, she will come home with a new bedroom set. That's when you know you went too far.

I'm not going to give you all the facts of the mission. There is some deeply classified stuff I can't share. I won't share. We shopping ninjas are a very closed mouth group. We pass down our lore from generation to generation. My son, for example, already pees behind bushes, not at his own home. For the rest of you, the best I could suggest, the only real help you have-

Shop on line.

As for the rest of the ninja warrior shopping crowd remember-

'Domo shitsu aragato wasabi'
I would like fries with that