Ninja Recycling

There's been a disturbing trend in the common vernacular, a propensity accelerated by the Internet, of diluting the meaning of the term "ninja". Ninja is frequently used to merely mean skillful or one who possesses skill ("Dude's a ninja at the copy machine."), which seems a rather disgraceful affront to ninjutsu and its true adherents.

Let me explain the context for this pronouncement. I've always been apathetic about recycling. Part of the problem is that my apartment building pays for private garbage collection, which precludes its residents from participating in the municipal recycling pickup every week. For a while I looked into visiting recycling centers, but none of them accept paper, which is my primary waste product.

But then I realized that all I had to do was ascertain the day of the week upon which the blue bin pickup occurs, and then dump my recyclables in a neighbor's bin on the night before pickup. Most of my neighbors don't even come close to filling their recyclable bins every week, leaving plenty of room for me to deposit my own bottles, papers, and cans. The solution to my recycling dilemma was solved, as I often tend to solve problems, by gaming the system.

So now I gather my recyclables in the dead of night, sneak outside my building, and covertly dump them in a neighbor's bin. This is a mission that literally requires the skills of ninjutsu: stealth, agility, subterfuge. There is no honor conferred nor koku dispensed for completing the task; only the satisfaction of a mission accomplished.

Now that's ninja.