Saturday, January 15, 2011

The Officially Licensed Maintenance Ninja Handbook

I have had the profound joy of working on the maintenance team at Circle Square Ranch (Severn Bridge) for the past two years. It was there that I became the Maintenance Ninja. In an effort to pass on the training and lore of the Maintenance Ninja to younger generations, I created The Officially Licensed Maintenance Ninja Utility Belt. The O.L.M.N.U.B. fell into the hands of Joshua M, a friend of mine. However, due to time constraints, I was unable to complete the handbook that was supposed to go with it.
The following is an excerpt from The Officially Licensed Maintenance Ninja Handbook.

Congratulations!

You are either the recipient of the Officially Licensed Maintenance Ninja Utility Belt, or have won it in a battle to the death. If the former, you must be a staff member at the Christian summer camp Circle Square Ranch (Severn Bridge). You are, therefore, awesome (though if Josh W is reading this, that is no excuse for making up egotistical nicknames for yourself). If the latter, you have just killed a Circle Square staff member. Know that my vengeance will be swift and terrible.

A Maintenance Ninja is one who can use everything around him to trick his enemies. He and fast and he is friendly to his environment. A Maintenance Ninja is honest and good. His mind, body and spirit are one. He has self-control. He has discipline. He has an awesome Utility Belt. A Maintenance Ninja loves nature because he is part of nature. A Maintenance Ninja never fights a battle if he cannot win.

The original ninjas, on the other hand, were cold blooded killers who had the unenviable job of trying to kill off military leaders and royalty without being caught or executed. Still, there is much that we can learn from the first ninjas.

The first man considered to be a ninja was Prince Yamato. He dressed up as a woman and killed two men. While he may not have been wearing the black costume we now consider to be obligatory ninja garb, he did use everything around him to trick his enemies (and by everything around him, we mean a dress and a large sword, and probably a lot of makeup).

The classic ninja originated in the regions of Iga and Koga in Japan. The mercenaries in these regions were experts at infiltrating castles, using stealth and deception. Iga-Ueno, a city in the Iga region, now boasts a Ninja Museum, and holds a ninja parade every year. In the most recent parade, nobody saw anything until it was too late.

Many legends have arisen about ninjas. The ability to summon animals, shapeshift, or even split into multiple bodies are among their mythical talents. In fact, the reason most people think ninjas wore black is because early drawings depicted them in black to portray a sense of invisibility. It has long been believed that ninjas themselves spread false rumours about magical abilities in order to scare their enemies. While this theory made sense, no one knew until recently that Ninjas planted the rumours by flying through windows and planting the ideas in our minds while we slept.

Ninjas usually wore civilian clothes, and could disguise themselves as priests, entertainers, fortune tellers, merchants, or komusō monks. The komusō monk was a very effective disguise, as the monks were well known for wearing “basket” hats that covered the whole head, though why no one would be suspicious of a man with a basket on his head is beyond me.


Interesting Fact: Paranoid warlords often took precautions against assassination. Some built floors that were specially designed to make a loud noise when people stepped on them, others covered the ground with gravel. All of these countermeasures were unfortunately useless, because ninjas can fly.

1 comment:

Grace R. Pringle said...

You'd think the Warlords would do some research about ninjas before building the floors!