How to protect your house from ninjas

How to protect your house from ninjas – because someone has to. PS The solution may or may not include Narnia.

Yeah. But why SHOULD you protect your house from ninjas? A cautionary tale.

When I was a young girl, at the wee age of an age where you have no idea what your age is, I woke up to the sound of my parents being attacked by ninjas in the garden. The ninjas (or were they kunoichi?) were making the high-pitched ‘hiiiiiYAH YAH HIIIII’ sound you’d expect from any respectable ninja. Like in, you know, the films. The ninja films. With ninja noises in.

Too frightened to look out of the window in case I was spotted by a laser ninja eye, I decided to rouse my parents into action. A fairly ridiculous idea, as dad’s samurai experience was passable at best, and Mum’s never even been a whizz with a fork, never mind anything else. Foolishly confident in their Eastern combat abilities, I tiptoed down the corridor (you can’t RUN when there’s ninjas around, they’ll HEAR you), and popped my head through the parent’s bedroom door.

‘Mum,’ I said, ‘there’s some ninjas in the garden.’

As I waited in vain for a sleepy response along the lines of ‘alright poppet I’ll get my death rifle,’ I realised the bedroom was empty. Not a problem. Obviously, my parents were outside, fighting ninjas with their death rifle and their fighting skills! I only hoped mum wasn’t grappling with a fork.

So I did what any child would do when awaiting the results of her parents’ death match with suburban garden ninjas: I sat on the stairs and contemplated my future life as a ninja child. I considered waking my brother, sleeping soundly in the next room, then contemptuously dismissed the idea- after all, if anyone in this house was going to be a a ninja child it was me, and bloody Joe wasn’t going to take that away from me like he took away the sippy sippy cup with the clown on it JUST BECAUSE he was younger and ‘needed’ it.

After an unspecified amount of time, the front door swung open to reveal… a ninja! In a white cloak! And a Samurai white belt! Unfortunately, he then stepped into the light and to reveal himself as dad. in a dressing gown.

Flooded with relief that dad had won an arduous battle against worthy foes to claim me as his prize, I flung myself into dad’s arms, the daughter of a ninja slayer. He gathered me up proudly and placed me firmly back into bed, telling me that everything was OK now, I was safe, and by golly, did I sleep soundly and proudly that night.

Unfortunately it turned out that actually, some of our chickens had gotten out of the coop at about 1am, and mum and dad had chased them round the garden for about an hour and a half in their pyjamas, trying to get them to shut up by yelling at them quite loudly. Still. An eventful night, nevertheless.

The reason I tell this story (copyrighted, in case you’re thinking of turning it into a film), is because tonight I sit alone in a large house, ready to hunker down and brave out the night. There’s something about being in your old family home alone that takes you back to a time when ninjas lurked behind every chicken, and for some reason, I can’t shake the feeling that if ever there was a night for me to hone my fork skills, this is that night.

No matter how unlikely and ridiculous it seems, you just don’t know when ninjas might descend. How can you? With this in mind, I present to you my advice on how to protect your house against ninjas. Use it well.

How to ACTUALLY protect your house from ninjas

If you suspect a ninja is entering your house, immediately do the following…

1. Make your bed. It may seem like tidying up should be the last thing on your mind at a time like this, but trust me, a proud housewife is a significantly alive housewife. A scrambled bedsheet is the mark of a panicked inhabitant. You also seem like a person who cares about cleanliness, and ninjas (who wear black so the stains don’t show) will appreciate that.

2. Hide in a wardrobe – BUT DON’T CLOSE IT COMPLETELY. Like most people, everything I’ve learned about survival, I’ve learned from films about pirates / zombies / ninjas / slashy-slashers. Closed wardrobes is the first place they check. If you leave it a bit open, with some clothes kind of sprawly, it’s casual-open-chic, cool man, your room is practically having a cigarette it’s so chilled out.

3. Take your glasses. Damn. That probably should have been number one. Don’t go back and get your glasses now if you’re already in the wardrobe, but if you have them on you things will be a lot easier. I once groped my way downstairs (not in the sexytime way) whilst checking out a strange door banging noise, and my lack of sight made things such as walls and carpets look rather more like murderers than strictly necessary.

4. Phone your mum. Your mum will supply you with a button or a lever that will fix everything. Don’t ask me how it works, but they do it.

5. If the lever is out of reach inside the wardrobe, have a quick search for Narnia. It’s always worth a shot… Narnia tends to turn up at the most bloody useful times.

6. The ninja will be, by now, inside the room, searching for shuriken, his long lost father and the peace of mind that means he can go back to his village and carve that chair he’s always wanted to carve. It’s unlikely that these things will be in your room. Best to keep as silent as you can. Find silence a problem? Imagine that someone has just said to you ‘yeah, but don’t you think creationism just sort of makes sense?’ Then do the silence you would do after that.

7. It’s nearly over now. The ninja, having spotted the cunningly-made bed, will assume he is alone and will relax his guard. At this point, you CHARGE the ninja, bursting out of the wardrobe with your bat and dog, screaming ‘WHAT THE F*CK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?’

8. Oh, and plant a bat and dog inside the wardrobe first. Unless you can source them quickly from Narnia at the time.

9. Chase out the ninja with a triumphant battle cry, safe in the knowledge that you have defended your home, your livelihood, and actually did a bit of tidying up for once.

10. and finally, tighten the wires on your chicken coop. Fighting ninjas is one thing – hunting monsters is another. There’s no need for two nights’ battle in a row.

This could be a ninja. Attacking you in your cupboard. Think about it. Have you made your bed yet?

You honestly think a ninja wouldn’t disguise themselves as a sockmonkey to get the job done? Oh, foolhardy mook. You will learn. Oh yes – you will learn.

Reepicheep – unlikely to help

Just to prove we weren’t massively struggling to find a picture of a ninja in a house we give you… THIS.