Garden Ninja

I have always lived slightly on the reckless side of life. Well, not really, but I would do household chores and errands in super cool and exciting ways that would make me feel manly and athletic while having the added benefits of scaring the hell out of my Mom (and later my Wife) at the same time impressing the neighborhood guys (mostly kids). These impressive feats of agility, strength and a calculating intellect usually involved some sort of extravagant way of dangling from the roof or rafters with an assortment of very necessary power tools for extremely important household fixes, or balancing on a stack of kitchen chairs to place awkwardly heavy and fragile objects in their mandatory assigned

by-me precariously high places. But, my all time favorite and manliest feat of all: Urination Ninja – Operation hateful old ladies rose garden.

Created out of shear necessity by a recipe of beer, yard work, muddy and possibly dog-poopy shoes, a full bladder and a floor-mopping wife that would not reward my painstakingly hard work in the yard if  I soiled her floors. The dangers were a combination of passerby neighbors and traffic, an extremely grumpy and very deserving old hag and of course the obvious dangers of exposing your genitals to one of the harshest and pointiest environments known to mankind: A rose garden. Turning quickly would be end game and I would end up looking like a crying fisherman posing next to the extremely tiny minnow that he just hooked through mouth and out the head.

I think that this attitude of suburban daredevil-ism is a holdover from our prehistoric instincts of battling the harsh elements of nature; weather, wolves, saber-tooth tigers, or the rare pack of vicious wild migratory poodles (which was by far the most embarrassing way that a prehistoric man could die). Brain cancer though, has changed everything. What were once common and non-issue activities, like taking a shower while not slipping, is now a deadly and terrifying task that has left me several times bleeding and moaning in a heap on top of the fractured pieces of toilet that I broke with my head and shoulders (ironically, it was head and shoulders shampoo that I slipped on).

What used to be a relaxing and enjoyable place of soap and sin has become a death trap. Just about every mundane activity that you can think has become dangerous; stairs, rugs, small moving children and dogs, walking in general, getting out of the car next to a curb, a slope of any angle in any direction and pretty much any activity that is not sitting in a lounge chair, and this also includes getting out of a lounge chair. The excitement and entertainment of innocently manufactured dangers that I so continuously sought after to break up the dull repetitions of every day life in my youth of literally just a couple of years ago are now embarrassingly scary and nightmarish. I have in the span of a few painful moments been transformed from my young mildly daring self into the male caricature of my crotchety old neighbor with the rose garden that grew disgusting flowers that smelled like asparagus.