Our Latest Dorky Adventures

My wife hates trinkets – she wants a clean house, and all the little promo items we pick up at conventions are her enemy. So we’ll get a free collectible coin for seeing ENDGAME on opening night, and she’ll toss it. If work sends me a promotional Magic mat, she’ll give it away to our godchildren. She wants nothing – nothing – in the house that is not functional.

But when I bought Sekiro, a PlayStation game, they gave me a plastic samurai sword letter opener. It even came on a little stand. And she was away that weekend, so I became attached.

“Get rid of it,” she said.

“It’s useful!” I cried.

“What the hell use do you have for a cheap plastic letter opener?”

I stared her right in the eye. “Home defense.”

“Home defense?”

“It’s small. It’s concealable. They’ll never see it coming.”

She rolled her eyes and left me alone.

And then, hours later, when she was lying on the couch reading a book, I walked up for a kiss. She puckered her lips, and – AH HA! –

Samurai sword at her throat.

She never saw it coming.

“See?” I said, then kissed her on her stunned lips and danced away.

Over the next few weeks, she came to understand the power of stealth that was a cheap knockoff promo samurai sword. She’d be in the tub. She’d be downstairs sewing. She’d be going in for a cuddle, and – AH HA! –

Samurai sword.

I was, indeed, a ninja.

But the sword vanished the day after trash day, so I figured that Gini had finally gotten tired of me being a dork and had chucked it, which, you know, fair enough. Certainly I got more entertainment out of that than most plastic. And we curled up on the couch to watch Game of Thrones, when – AH HA!

Samurai sword at my throat.

“You are not the only ninja,” she said, and I realized that a war had begun.