Silent, like Ninja

Ever since I was a little kid, I've always had this thing with learning my way around in the dark. I know my way around the dark in my house and can remember exactly where everything in a room is when I close my eyes. I count stairs. That has to be my most self annoying trait. I count them as I walk up or down. In my head of course. I don't need to blare out on a loudspeaker - Hey everybody, look at the escaped OCD mental patient!

I can remember every house I've ever lived in and the only one I never walked around in the dark was the one in the mountains in Tucson. For those of you not familliar with Tucson, AZ, this house was not a hermit shack in a deserted mountain refuge, it was an older western foothills area. We were renting a house with more problems than Emily Rose's Exorcism. This house had fist sized spiders, killer honey bees, voracious ants, poisonous frogs, fist sized spiders, electrical wiring that caught fire randomly and a hottub that nobody went in because it foamed mysteriously and made a sound like the opening of the gate to hell... There were so many things that go bump in the night, the dog had a nervous breakdown and hid under the bed and refused to come out. We finally had to give her away to some old lady. Poor Kristy.

But other than that minor setback in my training, I've always found it helpfull to learn your way around in the dark. Like when you first turn out the light and have to go 10 feet to turn on the next. Of course you've got to be light footed and non-committal in walking. If you walk with purpose and pull a jackass by tripping on a shoe or run into a wall you can mess yourself up bad. I've gotten so good, I am masterfull in my art.

My wife disagrees. Okay, she flat out laughs at me. I made a few mistakes - I step on boxes and random pointy objects left out by someone, kicked the cat twice, fell on the dog four times, ran into walls, ran into the bedroom door, ran into the bathroom door, fell down the stairs, stubbed my toe on the couch, ran face first into the pole in the basement, tripped on the automan stool, tripped on the garbage can, ran into a spider web that was spun in my way, ran away screaming into the dark while I could feel the spider crawling on me, ran into the wall again, knocked over chairs, left hand prints all over the walls trying to stop running into shit, finally stumbling into bed landing on my wife who was already awake from all the other noise I've been making. She said it sounded like the Home Alone bandits broke in and brought their pet rhino with them.

Other than that, I'm completely Silent, like Ninja.