The Pink Ninja Stalks Security... a Memoir

When I was in my late teens/early twenties I worked in the toy department at a store we shall not name. :) They started me on third shift until they realized with my long brown hair and my name badge that read "Kimberly" I was a ringer for one of the season's most popular toys... yep you guessed it - the pink power ranger. So, they split my shift and had me start coming in earlier hours.

I did not have to dress in a costume or anything goofy like that. I still got to wear my regular clothes but I did have to deal more with the public. I worked register in the toy department for part of my shift and was expected to smile at people. I WAS SHOCKED at how many kids came up and shyly asked for my autograph. The kids were cute and being mistaken for a ninja was kind of cool. Dealing with the grumpy parents looking for a sold out toy ... not so much.

I began to get a little frazzled from all the attention and my nametag which had previously read "I Can Help!" had now somehow mysteriously been altered to simply read "Help!" (Which my manager did not find amusing).

So, getting into the ninja personality and deciding I needed a way to deal with the stress of the grumpy Christmas shoppers me and a coworker I will call Penny to protect her innocence (yeah right) took up a new hobby.

We thought the undercover security guards were a little silly with how obvious they would be running from aisle to aisle (and throwing their back against the new aisle when they got there, arms out peeking around the corner to see if anyone was in it, blatantly forgetting the rest of the store could still see them)trying to be sneaky but giving away that they were security with their actions. So, as soon as the second shift ended and our third shift started we began "the hunt". Every night we would carefully take some of the Nerf bow and arrows and the Nerf guns out of their packages and stalked security. We figured it would teach them to be sneakier - or at the very least they would learn to hide themselves better. We were having fun at least knowing that we were sneakier than security because for a very long part of the holiday season they never saw us and we thought that was hilarious. We would follow along behind them lining up our shots saying where we could have hit them. One time we even hid up in the bean bags and could have ambushed them from above. It was so funny.

Some of our coworkers in the department thought it was so funny they didn't mind stocking our aisles for us while we hunted. We usually limited it to our lunch breaks and short 15 minute breaks. Some of our coworkers smoked and we didn't so we would take a 5 minute "hunt" break after each of our coworkers' cigarette breaks. We also would use walkie-talkies so they could let us know when security was getting close to the toy department so we could get back to work weapons hidden, security none-the wiser. It wasn't like our game was giving them extra work we still did our fair share. Multi-tasking people we weren't total slackers - we were NINJAS - we did it all. We were awesome!

Well, the first time we actually captured one of the guards was hilarious. We were both FED UP with the grumpy Christmas people shoppers and figured it was time to get a new job. This was the night we were going to unload and bombard security with every Nerf bullet and every Nerf arrow we could carry. Thing is, NOT ONLY did we not get into trouble... they laughed at us. They were embarrassed when we told them how long we had been stalking them, especially since they had not noticed us doing it before. They thought it was so much fun they asked us to help keep our eyes peeled for shoplifters and joked we should shoot them. Then they picked up Nerf guns and started hunting us back AND FLIRTING UGH! We both ended up staying at the job a few years longer after the holidays we got sent to different departments. Security still stalked us wanting to learn our ninja skills.

I guess that is proof that Ninjas are just too cool for words.